Mare Orientale, Bailly, Ocean of Storms (25th/26th Feb 2021)

[rob_r]

Hi, a string of clear nights from the latter half of last week was a welcome sight and the favourable conditions seem set to continue for the next couple of days at least. Coupled with a favourable libration of the recent full Moon, the western/southwestern limb was showing a little more of the farside particularly the massive Mare Orientale. So, below are a few images of Mare Orientale (Eastern Sea) be it incredibly foreshortened, Bailly (along with Schickard & Schiller) and Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms). All taken with a SW SkyMax 127, ZWO ASI224MC plus extender tube (perhaps a little over the usual 1500mm focal length) with no filters on a EQ5 mount. Attempted to use a Celestron 2x barlow but this showed a terrible reflection or glare across the camera but happy enough with this set nonetheless. Next on the shopping list is a IR pass filter to increase the sharpness a little more hopefully and a better quality 2.5x barlow perhaps.

Each image acquired via/consisted of:
Exposure 5ms, 60 gain via ASICap
5 x 3000 frame AVIs, best 25% stacked in AS!3
Wavelet sharpening RegiStax 6
Final stack in Siril
Final level and curve adjustments in Photoshop.

Thanks for looking!

Edited March 1, 2021 by rob_r

[kirkster501]

Nicely done. Very nice images to peruse.  
Shame the lunar imaging section is so overlooked on SGL since you’d get a prize with these.

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by kirkster501

[Yawning Angel]

Lovely images! Thank you for sharing and the write up.