Imaging The Moon With A Modified DSLR

[Mikey0368]

I have a modified Canon EOS 600d and any pictures I take of the moon are way too bright. Could someone give me some idea of the ISO setting and exposure length that I should be using?

Thanks.

[Owmuchonomy]

Enable the Histogram function on your screen and set the ISO and exposure to ensure about 70% of your histogram is populated.  Aim for the combination that gives you the fastest exposure.

[Mikey0368]

Thanks for that. I should have mentioned that I use digiCamControl but I'm sure I'll find it in there.

[newbie alert]

I've used my 100d on the moon, you need a low iso (100) with a  fast shutter speed of some think like 1/125 upwards..

The moon is a bright target

[Knight of Clear Skies]

5 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

I've used my 100d on the moon, you need a low iso (100) with a  fast shutter speed of some think like 1/125 upwards..

Personally, I'd increase the ISO level a little (400-800 maybe) and decrease the exposure time to reduce atmospheric blurring. The exact exposure time will depend on the speed of the optics used.

The best results on the Moon with a DSLR will be obtained by taking a large number of frames (perhaps 70-100) and stacking the best 10-15%. While DSLRs have video modes the resolution is lower than single frame captures. But stacking isn't essential, if you take a few shots some will be sharper than others (lucky imaging).

[newbie alert]

1 minute ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Personally, I'd increase the ISO level a little (400-800 maybe) and decrease the exposure time to reduce atmospheric blurring. The exact exposure time will depend on the speed of the optics used.

The best results on the Moon with a DSLR will be obtained by taking a large number of frames (perhaps 70-100) and stacking the best 10-15%. While DSLRs have video modes the resolution is lower than single frame captures. But stacking isn't essential, if you take a few shots some will be sharper than others (lucky imaging).

Interesting,  although if I used iso 800 with mine I'd blow it to bits..what exposure time would you use then, surely far faster?

[david_taurus83]

Modified Canon 600D, 200 x 1/1250 at ISO100. Shot with a 200p so hoovered up the photons. I think a smaller scope would still need quite fast shutter speed but experimentation is needed.

[michael8554]

Fast exposure to minimise camera shake and atmospheric effects, say 1/1000th sec.

Then adjust ISO to give no clipping at the white end of the Histogram.

That's when attached to a telescope.

If you're using a Canon lens, set aperture down a couple of stops to improve lens response, then set ISO as above.

But if you have to go beyond ISO 400 or 800, try 1/500th sec exposure.

Take many images and choose best ones to stack.

Michael

[Mikey0368]

Thanks folks, that's really helpful.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

On 12/04/2019 at 15:17, newbie alert said:

...what exposure time would you use then, surely far faster?

Yes, that the idea. The longer the exposure the more atmospheric turbulence can blur the image.

[carastro]

I got this with 10 stacked shots of 100iso on AV some years ago.  It was during twilight, so not sure if that makes any difference to the settings. I changed the sky background from blue to black in processing. 

 

 

 

[Mikey0368]

It was clear enough for me to have a go last night and I'm pretty pleased with the results. Here's one of the JPEG's as an example.

However, I got an error message when trying to stack 93 RAW images in Deep Sky Stacker. Can anyone advise how to resolve this? Again, example attached.

 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

The single frame looks good. DSS uses stars to align the subs, so I don't think it will work on the Moon. I'd recommend using Registax or AutoStackert for lunar or planetary images.

[carastro]

Yes as stated above you will need to use Registax or similar.  However I found that I could only stack 2 or 3 at a time in Registax as it overloaded and froze or failed to work with anything more than that.   I never did as many as 93, but what I did was stack say 3 at a time.  (this would give you 31 stacked files.  Then I'd stack 3 at a time of those, leaving you with 10 files, and so on.  Bit laborious, you might find a stack of roughly 9 subs will suffice.

Carole 

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1 minute ago, carastro said:

Yes as stated above you will need to use Registax or similar.  However I found that I could only stack 2 or 3 at a time in Registax as it overloaded and froze or failed to work with anything more than that.   I never did as many as 93, but what I did was stack say 3 at a time.  (this would give you 31 stacked files.  Then I'd stack 3 at a time of those, leaving you with 10 files, and so on.  Bit laborious, you might find a stack of roughly 9 subs will suffice.

Carole 

I've had problems with Registax bombing out when the target drifts across the field of view over the video or set of single frames. Running the frames through PIPP  first usually does the trick as it can align all the frames and crop the image down to the correct size. Stacking in Registax is also much faster after that.

[festoon]

Just spent ages this morning with a similar problem. Registax only wants to stack one image. Went to use Autostakker and this worked only if I used Image Stabilisation - Surface option. I then loaded the file into registax to do the final wavelet and de-noise processing

[carastro]

It is possible to stack them in photoshop manually, though it can be a bit tedious.

In layers slide one on top of the other (top layer 50% so you can see what you are doing and also you need to combine with the top layer at 50%.

Carole