Gibbous Moon - 2nd April 2020 - two pane mosaic

[geeklee]

I couldn't believe how much deconvolution this image would take with fairly minimal impact to quality.  It's two panes from my ZWO ASI533 camera on a Sky-Watcher 127 Mak.  I wish I'd had the barlow on after seeing the output, but I wasn't convinced of the quality during capture.

500 frames for each pane (@8.8GB for each .SER file).  Sent through PIPP and 25% frames stacked in AS!3.  They were stitched using Microsoft's ICE and then the whole image processed in Astra Image.

Apart from a minor stacking artifact, it's got some really awesome detail for the field of view and stands up well to 1:1 viewing, so do open in another tab to view at full resolution.  Thanks for looking!

[wouterdhoye]

A absolutley lovely image. The illumination of the moon was excellent too. processing imo is spot on.

[PhotoGav]

Beautiful image. The sky seems to be so much clearer as a consequence of lockdown. I have a virtually identical image of the Moon from the same night as this and it is as crisp as I ever remember seeing the Moon. More clear nights too. Thank goodness for small mercies.

[geeklee]

10 minutes ago, wouterdhoye said:

A absolutley lovely image. The illumination of the moon was excellent too. processing imo is spot on.

Thanks @wouterdhoye, it's always a pleasure viewing your images to see areas of mine in better detail and resolution!

10 minutes ago, PhotoGav said:

Beautiful image. The sky seems to be so much clearer as a consequence of lockdown. I have a virtually identical image of the Moon from the same night as this and it is as crisp as I ever remember seeing the Moon. More clear nights too. Thank goodness for small mercies.

Thanks  @PhotoGav I've not seen the same amount of clear nights unfortunately, but the Moon has looked excellent recently.  Looking forward to seeing your image 👍

[Philter]

Wow, that's fantastic!

Did you use the full resolution of the ASI553 for capture?

[Peter Drew]

Excellent image, belies the aperture used!.  There may well be a run on 127 Maks after the current crisis passes.    🙂

[geeklee]

4 hours ago, Philter said:

Wow, that's fantastic!

Did you use the full resolution of the ASI553 for capture?

Thanks @Philter. 

Yeah, it was hard going on transfer speed (maybe 10 or slightly less FPS) even with an SSD on the receiving end - it's why I limited  each capture to "only" 500 frames @ ~17MB per frame.  Not very practical for proper high speed but came good!

[Philter]

Well, it's certainly a great result!

I've got the ASI533 on order but I'm not sure when it'll arrive. With the nights getting shorter it might not get much use on DSO's until later on in the year so I was thinking of trying some lunar imaging with my 9.25" SCT.  It should give me a wider FOV compared to my ASI224 even if I don't use the full resolution. I definitely want to try a mosaic after seeing your image! 😀

[geeklee]

35 minutes ago, Philter said:

I was thinking of trying some lunar imaging with my 9.25" SCT.  It should give me a wider FOV compared to my ASI224 even if I don't use the full resolution.

With the 9.25, that should be capable of some excellent "closer up" shots.  Funnily enough I also have a 224 based camera (1280x960) and it's obviously been capable of some awesome FPS.  I've done a couple of images with half the resolution selected in SharpCap (~1500x1500) with the ASI533 and obviously got the faster FPS because of it - so, lots of options.

There's plenty of adapters in the box to hook the camera up - I took the quick route and just put the 1.25" nose piece on the ASI533 and then into the 127 Mak.  After cranking the focus knob for a while, it all came good and into focus 🙂

I look forward to seeing your shots with the ASI533 👍