Lunar Photography Opinion

[ThomasF1234]

Hi everyone, last night i went out to take some pictures for my first time of the moon using a Canon 450d and the skywatcher evostar 102 with a x2 barlow lens and using an EQ3 mount with the synscan goto handset. I took 1/30 exposure with an ISO of 200 and the attached photos are the stacked results (using autostakkert). Also i didn't add any darks or flats as i didn't know if that was necessary and also i don't know how to do that on this software. So really I am just wanting some opinions and some tips or tricks to getting better imaging, any advice is appreciated. Thank you

2020-05_g4_ap830.tif 2020-05_g4_ap830_conv.tif

[MarkAR]

Hi Thomas, not a bad first attempt but it looks like focus was a little off.

Also worth playing around with exposure and ISO, slightly under exposed seems to work well in cutting down the moon glow.

[ThomasF1234]

1 minute ago, MarkAR said:

Hi Thomas, not a bad first attempt but it looks like focus was a little off.

Also worth playing around with exposure and ISO, slightly under exposed seems to work well in cutting down the moon glow.

Thanks I’ll have a bit play around with exposure ect tonight!

[wornish]

As others have said not bad for a first attempt.

1/30 sec is quite a long exposure and the moon is moving quite quickly.  I would recommend going for at least 1/250 sec or even faster to try and remove the motion blur.

The other tip is use a remote shutter release as simply pressing the shutter causes vibration even in a sturdy mount causing blur.

Focussing is critical.

[ThomasF1234]

2 minutes ago, wornish said:

As others have said not bad for a first attempt.

1/30 sec is quite a long exposure and the moon is moving quite quickly.  I would recommend going for at least 1/250 sec or even faster to try and remove the motion blur.

The other tip is use a remote shutter release as simply pressing the shutter causes vibration even in a sturdy mount causing blur.

Focussing is critical.

Thank you, I recently bought the Sky watcher auto focuser so that that will make focusing a whole lot easier! 

[Freddie]

No need for darks or flats with lunar shots. You say they are stacked. How many in each? No mention of sharpening which would improve the results of the stacked images. Amount of sharpening you can use will depend to some degree on the number of images in the stack.

[ThomasF1234]

1 minute ago, Freddie said:

No need for darks or flats with lunar shots. You say they are stacked. How many in each? No mention of sharpening which would improve the results of the stacked images. Amount of sharpening you can use will depend to some degree on the number of images in the stack.

I think one is sharpened and drizzled and the other is neither sharpened nor drizzled. There’s about 20 in the stack.