34 Megapixel Colour Mosaic 65% Waxing Gibbous Moon Jan 29th, 2023

[WestCoastCannuck]

Finally got another (cold) night in.   My first decent night since October and back to crap since then.   Temp was dropping quickly  and my C11 data was garbage,  but my faithful 140mm came through.    This is the first colour image I have made that I am happy with.  Could be better....  but I am getting there.   Hope you all enjoy.    Capture details at lower right of pic.

 

Hope you enjoy!   C and C  most appreciated,  positive OR negative. 

 

Clear skies!

 

Mike

 

 

😎

[Kon]

Excellent image. The full resolution is amazing. I wonder if you could have pushed the saturation a bit more for the mineral colours to pop more. Still an excellent image.

[WestCoastCannuck]

4 hours ago, Kon said:

Excellent image. The full resolution is amazing. I wonder if you could have pushed the saturation a bit more for the mineral colours to pop more. Still an excellent image.

Thanks much Kon!  I am pretty pleased with it!   Oh yes.... there is more colour to bring out,  and I likely will at some point,  but on this first result I stopped for now.   I rather like the understated colour here.

 

Clear skies!!

 

Mike

[CraigT82]

That’s a real beauty Mike, what a superb tool that big frac is… is there really that little CA on the limb or do you process it out? 
 

The colour for me is spot on, this looks so much more ‘lifelike’ to me than mono images. 

[WestCoastCannuck]

7 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

That’s a real beauty Mike, what a superb tool that big frac is… is there really that little CA on the limb or do you process it out? 
 

The colour for me is spot on, this looks so much more ‘lifelike’ to me than mono images. 

Thanks much Craig!!   Yes,  I have gone through many scopes in my lunar obsession and the APM 140  is still the best of them really with its sharp and well corrected FPL 53 doublet optics - not the equal of better triplets of course for colour aberrations,  but plenty good enough for me!   In the seeing I usually have,  it often matches what I can get with 8 inches and almost ALWAYS can turn out something nice, even in not great seeing.  haha   This night was another where it shined,  and larger aperture did not seem to give more.

And yes,   I can happily report that I did ZERO CA removal on this image.   Limb was as you see it here  - pretty clean.   It gets rather obvious at some crater rims when blown up 200 or 300% -  annoying to me,  but really hardly anything and not in-your-face  at the already huge 100% size.    I guess the lack of CA must also be a credit to whatever coatings are on the 1.5X barlow I used - a Seibert Optics 1.5X "Telecentric" barlow. 

I really like the colour too,  yet I am sure it can be improved a lot without it being too much.    I suck at dealing with colour in spite of being a serious hobby photographer for many decades.   I know approximately what I have to learn and I am looking into it.    I did at least ONE thing right here though - I got all my colour levels (RGB) aligned IN capture while shooting.   I did almost nothing to arrive at this colour - just a little playing with saturation.   Colour temp is as captured.  :)))

I expect that in the future,  on good nights when I have the time (and opportunity) my work will be a colour mosaic with the 140,  hopefully some more colour closeups with the C11,  and then some targeted maximum hi rez mono attempts with my 290MM.    

Here was my setup from that night - pretty fast to get going and likely my usual from now on.   (Have the CPC on a roll out now to save my back)

 

Clear skies!!

 

Mike

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by WestCoastCannuck
added info - clarity

[Andy ES]

4 hours ago, WestCoastCannuck said:

(Have the CPC on a roll out now to save my back)

Mike

That looks great, did you make it or buy it from somewhere? 

Cheers 

[WestCoastCannuck]

Just now, Andy ES said:

Mike

That looks great, did you make it or buy it from somewhere? 

Cheers 

Hey Andy.  It's a JMI Medium Heavy Duty Wheely with 5 inch wheels.   Perfect for CPC1100.  When set up Correctly and the provided silly excuse for feet are replaced, it's solid as a rock.

[Trevor N]

Lovely image Mike. It’s very smooth but detailed and realistic looking. For some reason I’ve always shot in mono and never thought of using the colour camera on the moon. It’s encouraged me to have a go. ! Trevor 

[WestCoastCannuck]

On 06/02/2023 at 09:17, Trevor N said:

Lovely image Mike. It’s very smooth but detailed and realistic looking. For some reason I’ve always shot in mono and never thought of using the colour camera on the moon. It’s encouraged me to have a go. ! Trevor 

Thanks Trevor!   I had not thought about colour myself till recently after seeing some very striking images from others - just another avenue of exploration in our wonderful world of imaging!   Still have much to improve - need more practice!  (that is....  more clear nights *sigh*

Wonderful to connect again with you!

 

Clear skies

 

Mike

[astroavani]

Excellent mosaic, I did not notice flaws. Very good overall tone without exaggeration, as expected the resolution leaves a little to be desired due to the smaller aperture, in this the C11 would be killer but as you said, we have to respect the seeing.
As I only have C14 most of the time I do everything I can to dodge the seeing.
One question: Have you tried using a 685 IR pass filter with the C11?
This will help you a lot to dodge the seeing and although you lose a little resolution in relation to RGB, the difference in aperture from the C11 to the 140mm can compensate.
Just making a mosaic with C11 will be a lot more work, although the result will be excellent.

[WestCoastCannuck]

On 11/02/2023 at 19:12, astroavani said:

Excellent mosaic, I did not notice flaws. Very good overall tone without exaggeration, as expected the resolution leaves a little to be desired due to the smaller aperture, in this the C11 would be killer but as you said, we have to respect the seeing.
As I only have C14 most of the time I do everything I can to dodge the seeing.
One question: Have you tried using a 685 IR pass filter with the C11?
This will help you a lot to dodge the seeing and although you lose a little resolution in relation to RGB, the difference in aperture from the C11 to the 140mm can compensate.
Just making a mosaic with C11 will be a lot more work, although the result will be excellent.

 

Thanks so much for your kind comments Avani!   I am well pleased with this image.   If only I had had the C11 out longer to acclimate properly,  I believe the results may have been very good.   Unfortunately,  the clear sky was a surprise and I was unprepared.   I had to close up session before C11 was properly ready.    In spite of the thermal issues  I DID get one half decent image,  much to my surprise given the data  (I was not even going to try processing the video looked so bad!)

 

I have only had the C11 since October,  and in that time I have only managed three nights with it.  (Clouds and more clouds!)   I indeed used the Baader 685nm on all my imaging attempts.  (290MM camera).   Results not too bad,  but looking forward to better sky!   Also have 742nm Astronomik  and 807nm Astronomik.    Need a good LONG session to experiment.   Hopefully soon!

Very best regards

 

Mike

 

From same night as above, with scope not properly acclimated.    Two piece mosaic.  C11 at prime.  290MM and 685nm.

 

Setup of the night.....

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by WestCoastCannuck
added pic