moon shot

[roger jerome]

Hello again folks

this is 30 percent of a 1000 frame capture using my asi 120 mc camera.  I do have an asi 120mm camera with filters and was wondering if it would be productive to use that for lunar with a red or green filter to capture?

Thanks 

Roger 

[AstroNebulee]

Have you got the free software registax 6? You can use this for sharpening up your images and give it more definition by moving the wavelet sliders a touch each time. They only take a small movement to increase the detail. 

Your scope and camera shoukd be capable of really sharp images. 

I used to use my 120mcs on my old sw 127 mak and could really tease out the detail. 

It's been a while since I've done any lunar imaging with my 120mcs. I think I used to use the software pipp for stacking or Autostakkert then the resulting image sent to registax 6 for a bit of sharpening and then a slight tweak in photoshop cs4. 

Lee 

Edited September 13, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[roger jerome]

Thank you

[symmetal]

As AstroNebulee said Roger, you should be able to obtain much sharper images with your scope. I imagine it's at a low altitude at the moment from your location so air turbulence will affect it. Are you keeping exposure low like 5mS or so? In AS3 I usually choose up to around 1000 alignment points on full frame Moon images.

Mono imaging with a filter will help as it limits the range of wavelengths you capture. Green is good for maintaining image brightness while red can give better results in poor seeing conditions. Unless you're going for highly saturated colour images to reveal the subtle colour differences, mono images give a pretty accurate view of how it appears to he eye. 🙂

With the Moon you're not limited in video duration by planet rotation, so take like 4 or 5 min videos and select only the best 5 or 10% for stacking in AS3. If you have an Alt-Az mount then image rotation and the ability of AS3 to de-rotate will be a limiting factor though.

Here are a sample of a stacked image from AS3 and another after using the deconvolution features of Imppg on the stacked image. I use Imppg rather than Registax wavelets on the Moon as not so much enhancement is usually required compared to planets. Taken with FLT98 and 2x powermate with ASI178MM The 178 has smaller pixels compared to the 120 though which helps.

I focus on a nearby star with a bahtinov mask.

AS3 output, 10% stack of around 6000 frames of 5mS exposure. View full size for comparable image scale to your result.

Above image processed by Imppg

Alan