Mare Imbrium widefield mosaic

[Beyond_Vision]

Absolutely awesome images Nick. It's no surprise your image was chosen as best picture of 2008 in the Sky at Night.

Keep them coming in 2009

Regards

Kevin

[PaulG]

How the hell did I miss this post, stunning clarity Nick.

I've seen some excellent Lunar images on SGL but the Mare Imbrium mosaic is one of the best.

You have got to be pleased with it Nick.

Looking forward to seeing many more in 2009

Paul

[Nick Smith]

Thanks again chaps-a bit of an unexpected thread revival!

To answer a couple of the questions: the scope is 14" aperture; the resolution in Clavius is down to about 1km, maybe a bit lower if you count the "dots" as being resolved as craters. If anyone has a decent reference for this I would appreciate a look at it, as the best I could find only went down to about 1.5km. With a C14 in good conditions it should be easily possible to resolve sub-kilometre detail as this image was only taken at prime focus.

Regards

Nick

[Trevor]

Hi Nick

From memory I believe this is the highest res image taken by an amateur

http://higginsandsons.com/astro/images/PTOLEMAEUS-M53-S444-09-14-06.jpg

Not too sure but I think it’s down to 650m I will try and find the paperwork over the next few days.

Trev.

[Ant]

I've never really taken too much notice of lunar shots. Think I'll be spending a little more time in this section!

But I'm getting a few results myself which really gives me an understanding of the time and work needed and the difficulty of these shots.

I try not to refer back to my own images when complimenting others, but I have just posted a mosaic that I thought was good...but these are something else again.

It's not just the image scale that does it for me, but the whole package - it's difficult to explain. But the brightness levels are spot on right from the dark to bright area's. Also there is something captivating about the texture of the images.

I suspect that the great texture is something to do with the quality of the original AVI, and the fact that the images do not need to be processed to within an inch of their lives to get a good image - which mine almost always need

Cheers

Ant

[Trevor]

Nick

You could try LTVT to determine what resolution you are achieving with your scope with regard to crater size.

http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/LTVT

http://ltvt.wikispaces.com/Crater+Resolution

Trev.

[Nick Smith]

Thanks for the links Trev, most interesting. This also goes to show that, once you get over about 10-11 inches, aperture makes little difference on the Moon except under exceptional conditions.

Regards

Nick