Aristarchus and Copernicus, Playing with Colour

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I made 2 longer SER files of the Aristarchus and Copernicus region of the moon yesterday (2000 frames each) stacked, and stitched the stacked result (500 frames each) in MS-ICE. After sharpening the L-band in ImPPG, and playing with curves in GIMPI got the following shot:

 

I then did a more selective manipulation of saturation, by boosting the B band only in LAB space in GIMP. This gives  neat "silver and blue" appearance:

 

Boosting the A band as well, gives a more "gold and blue" appearance:

Stretching the A and B bands in LAB colour space can simply be done by applying curves to the appropriate layer after decomposing the RGB image into LAB layers.

I do think I should have used my atmospheric dispersion corrector into the optical train, as a slight shift is visible. Will have a go in Registax to correct that later.

[Stargazer33]

Lovely detail Michael; especially in the ejecta. 

[Pete Presland]

Fantastic looking images, love the color Lunar images.

[dannybgoode]

That's outstanding.  I really need to get down to a proper attempt at a really nice close up lunar image and if it's a fraction as good as that I'll be delighted...

[johnfosteruk]

You know me, I love a colour Lunar image, and these are magnificent. Nice one Michael.