My 1st Moon Mosaic !

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi

I took this image on 13/09/19, yes... it is the Harvest Moon, again! , using my Intes-Micro MN56 Mak-Newt telescope and ZWOASI178MC camera.
I basically shot two 510 frame AVI's at highest resolution of 3096x2080 of the top section and bottom section of the full Moon.
I then stitched them together and saved as a JPEG, using the free Microsoft Composite Image Editor (ICE), which i have never used before.
I can't wait to have a go at more ambitious Moon Mosaics, using this free programme, which is so easy to use.  Amazed with my resulting image.
Image tweaked using Affinity Photo Serif.
Regards,

Steve

 

[JamesF]

Looks very good.  Even more so for a first attempt.  A little over-exposed perhaps, but I'm concerned I may have the same problem in my own Moon mosaics that I haven't yet processed.  It seems quite hard to get the balance right with a mosaic.

James

[Lucas_M]

Congrats Steve! Very good begining!!

James is right about the difficult to set a good exposure for a moon mosaic. It's a huge target with so many different brightness areas.

The way to avoid over exposure is set gain and exposure time in the brightest surface point. 

But you really got a great image

[wouterdhoye]

Hi,

Nice first effort. I've made a couple of large moon mosaics already and it is important to first scan the surface and set your exposure right for the brightest parts. And don't touch it afterwards. So use the same setting for the entire surface.  Areas that are a bit dark can be brightened at the cost of a bit of noise. But saturated parts can not be recovered in any way. I usually make sure that the brightest parts in my movies are not brighter than 80% saturation or so. This also give some headroom for sharpening, which often also can result in clipped highlights. 

Wouter.

[CraigT82]

Nice work, as mentioned a little overexposed in the highlights but nice looking image nonetheless. Lots of oblique craters visible neat the north pole

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Many thanks for your kind comments and good advice concerning setting the exposure against the brightest parts .

Regards,

Steve