Another attempt at Luna

[Fraunhoffer]

Having just received a copy of 'Budget Astrophotography - Imaging with your DSLR and webcam' the full moon presented a wonderful opportunity to work through the example given for the moon.

So here we are: 50 raw pictures on a Sony a5000 using a zoom eyepiece (to get a nice fill of the frame) for projection with a Bresser 102s/600 on Exos2 . ISO 200 1/100s. Bahtinov mask to get the focus.
Conversion of .arw to .tif using PIPP. including clipping.
Stacking with Registax using 43/51 frames.
Creation of 2 layers (1 colour with saturation boosted and noise smoothed out + 1 sharpened b/w) and blending with PaintshopPro.

Being self critical,
The picture focus is slightly off on the LHS - which I think is due to so much stuff handing off the focus tube.
My calculation went a bit wrong - I was hoping to use prime focus with a x2 Barlow - but it went just outside the frame - so I might try a mosaic another time.

Any comments on how I could improve this (without spending a fortune or a week on the computer ? ) welcome.

Thanks.

PS - great book btw.

 

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

Someone might correct me, but I'm not using the mask to focus is the best way here. Zooming in on live view might be better in such a huge bright target. 

[Fraunhoffer]

Every day is a school day...
I went back to my various test shots to compare Prime Focus vs EP projection (above photo) and using a 2x Barlow camera adapter.
I think the best photo for clarity and lack of CA is just the prime focus > in futur I will not bother with the Barlow (introduced CA) and the EP projection adapter (mushy photo).
In all 3 I used a mask to find a good focus.
 

 

 

[Radioamateur]

What 2x Barlow did you use? Thanks

[Fraunhoffer]

4 hours ago, Radioamateur said:

What 2x Barlow did you use? Thanks

Its one of these built into a camera adapter. It just screws in the end like a filter. Now Ive used it a few times - some mixed feelings.
Its quite convenient to use. It makes the barrel of the adapter (or eyepiece) quite long so it doesn't always sit nicely into the hole.
It doesn't have screw threads on the end of the Barlow bit, so not possible to use a filter.

It might be better with a small subject near the centre, but with an extended object like the moon nearly filling the frame of a dslr- it wasn't so good. That night be just due the field curvature I suppose.

I found that due to the spacing from the barlow to the camera chip on my set up the magnification was about x3. 
I might experiment with screwing into a spare barrel from an old EP and putting it inside the tube (since I only need the M screwthread for the camera) thus reducing the chip-barlow distance a bit.
I did think about using a 'normal' barlow but the chain of things bolted together and hanging off the focuser gets big and sloppy.

 

Added later.

Thanks for your Q. Made me think a bit more about how to get the best out of what I have, After swapping a few bits around ( I knew there was a reason I kept that old eyepiece) Ive moved the Barlow lens inside (I could use any Barlow barrel) and now  I can put filters on the end.
Also after a bit more head-scratching I guess its a bit of a hard ask to fill a 25x15mm sensor when the Barlow 'window' is only 20mm diameter (mmh). I have another Barlow with a bigger window so some more experimenting I suppose. Now I also understand why only a 'webcam' sized sensor is needed to image a small object (eg Planet).
Always learning ….
 

[Fraunhoffer]

22 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Someone might correct me, but I'm not using the mask to focus is the best way here. Zooming in on live view might be better in such a huge bright target. 

Hello - I meant that there was a conveniently placed star nearby for me to focus on, before swinging back. Things might have shifted whilst returning to the moon is another variable I guess.