22 Apr Moon using a rather unplanetary setup.

[symmetal]

With the Moon up and no NB targets, I thought I might as well try the Moon. 🙂 Not wanting to disturb the imaging train having spent ages with the tilt adjuster, I didn't use a Powermate, just the FLT98 and an ASI6200MM. The FOV was a bit wide but thought I'd have a go.

First problem was Firecapture not liking the camera too much as it kept terminating the program without warning after a few minutes and it wouldn't control the filter wheel despite it saying it was connected OK. I had to go into the filter wheel ascom driver each time to change the filter which was a pain. Focusing using a Bahtinov mask on a nearby star the LRG and B looked parfocal so left the focus alone. I took three 120 second videos using L, R and G at 5mS exposure. In high speed mode (possibly 12 bit mode though the manual doesn't say) the camera managed 15fps using a ROI around the moon. Also no fps difference between 8 and 16 bit recording so used 16 bit. Stacked in Autostakkert using best 15% of 1800 frames. L and R looked pretty identical which surprised me with G being slightly softer. Probably not quite parfocal. Procesed with Imppg and slight curves adjustment in Photoshop.

The final image is a reasonable size though. Here's the Red image takrn using Astronomik Deep Sky RGB filters. Click for full size. 

 

I thought afterward I should have taken a blue video too and done an RGB version but having restarted Firecapture about 20 times and having to set everything up each time I unfortuneately didn't. I might try Sharpcap next time to see if it likes the camera better. 😀

Alan

[kirkster501]

I like.  Good job adding the moon to your repertoire of astronomy objects to image. Too many people curse it when it is a fabulous object to get immersed in.

[wouterdhoye]

That's a very pleasing image! Thanks for sharing.