Return to the Moon

[Buzzard75]

I have a love-hate relationship with the moon. I fight with it when doing my astrophotography, but I see something new every time I look at it. I honestly don't know why I don't stop fighting with it and photograph it more often. Yes, it's quite colorless, but there's so much detail on the surface and it's never the same from day to day. It can be quite beautiful and awe-inspiring.

It's been a long time since I've done any lunar photography, probably close to two years now. I've been seeing a lot of great close-ups and mosaics, which I can't compete with. The only telescope I have that has anywhere close to the focal length is my dob and it's packed away and I can't get to it right now. That leaves me with my short, wide-field Redcat. It's very short for something like the moon, but I'm quite happy with how this turned out. I used my mono ASI183MM Pro camera, Baader LRGB filters, PIPP, AS3!, Registax and Photoshop to create this image. I stacked the best 250 frames from each filter and combined them into a color image in Photoshop. I honestly think it's better and more detailed than the nine panel mosaic I did with my dob and DSLR a couple years ago when I was first starting out.

I've done a 16x9 in case anyone should feel inclined to use it as their desktop wallpaper. Always a good test of a photo you've produced, whether or not you'd use it as your own background.

 

[saac]

That is a lovely photography . I love the way it just melts away into the darkness - really moody/soulful. 

Jim 

[maw lod qan]

Very nice Lunar image!

And don't worry about trying to compete. 

I love the excellent images that are done by the very talented members here, but what imaging I do with my simple setup is for my enjoyment!

It's kind of like fishing. Oh yeah, it would be nice to pull in that world record, but I'm happy just getting one in the boat.