Apollo 15 Landing Site

[barkingsteve]

While the clouds have scuppered me for the past week i thought i would revisit some older data. Taken a couple of weeks ago with the C925, 178mm and 642 ir pass filter, best 15% of 2.5k frames. Probably the clearest image i have ever taken of an Apollo landing site.

 

 

For reference.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Very good indeed. I guess this Apollo 15 panorama was taken near 'Elbow'?

[sloz1664]

Really great images and a fascinating insight in the Apollo 15 landing site.

Steve  

[Xsubmariner]

Great image and nice presentation.

Martin

[Mr Spock]

Interesting place and an excellent presentation. Thank you for this 👍

[PeterW]

!!! I need a bigger scope. That image is amazing, loads of subtle stuff, alpine valley rille....!! I am sure the 14bit camera helped? What processing software did you use?

 

Peter

[barkingsteve]

Hi Peter,

I stacked in AS3, sharpened with the wavelets in Registax then some post processing ( levels, HDR toning, shadows/highlights ) in photoshop.

[Sunshine]

I wonder, that looks like a treacherous place to land a one attempt only lander, right next to a mountainous zone, surprised they chose it.

[richard ashbee]

Great photo and good to see the landing site

[kirkster501]

Utterly fabulous. Wow!

[steppenwolf]

An amazingly sharp image - I love it!

[johnfosteruk]

Outstanding image, well done

 

[seemoreStars]

WOW barkingsteve, very impressive!!

How much difference does the "642 ir pass filter" contribute to your images?

[barkingsteve]

2 hours ago, seemoreStars said:

WOW barkingsteve, very impressive!!

How much difference does the "642 ir pass filter" contribute to your images?

Hi seemoreStars,

    I now always use an ir pass filter on my mono camera when imaging the moon, it basically helps cut through the atmosphere so to speak, As you are imaging in a narrower band, it is less effected by poor seeing. You still need a steady night though for good images  There are slightly better bandwidths i think but i find the 642 works well for me. Perhaps one of the experts could explain it better but that is the gist of it.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Superb image!

[vineyard]

That is amazing!  It really brings home how alone & lonely they must have felt - how long were they on the moon for?

[Ags]

On 22/06/2020 at 05:07, Sunshine said:

I wonder, that looks like a treacherous place to land a one attempt only lander, right next to a mountainous zone, surprised they chose it.

From Wikipedia:

Although not ultimately his decision, the commander of a mission always held great sway.^[35] To David Scott the choice was clear, as Hadley "had more variety. There is a certain intangible quality which drives the spirit of exploration and I felt that Hadley had it. Besides it looked beautiful and usually when things look good they are good."

Apollo 15 is infamous for an unauthorized merchandising incident where the astronauts smuggled hundreds of postal covers to the Moon for a fee. None of the astronauts ever flew again!

Edited July 7, 2020 by Ags