First Lunar Image

[John_D]

I'm just starting with astrophotography and this is my first attempt at lunar imaging that I'm happy for people to look at. ( This was actually about my sixth attempt in all and was taken at the end of May. )
 

 

Because I'm a cheapskate I decided to start with whatever equipment I already had rather than buy anything new so I used my old Bresser 70mm refractor. This is on an equally old Orion EQ-1 equatorial mount that I've motorised using a stepper motor and an Arduino controller. I initially tried to take a video but my Nikon D3100 was over exposing the moon and I couldn't work out how to adjust the exposure ( I don't use video much on that camera! ). In the end I used an intervalometer to take about 200 stills.

I use Linux so the processing was:

• RawTherapee - RAW image processing to fine tune the exposure and colour balance and crop the image
• PIPP ( under WINE )
• Autostakkert3 ( under WINE )
• GIMP - final fine tuning

I could have probably done more tweaking of the image but I'm the world's laziest photo editor so this had to do.

 ( I was happy with this result so I've splurged £100 on a second hand TAL-2M scope which should give some more detailed lunar views and maybe some planetary images as well.  )

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by John_D

[Altocumulus]

Nowt wrong with that gem John.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Good to see your work. Welcome, but don't fall down the rabbit holes astrophotography invariably digs for us.

[John_D]

4 hours ago, Altocumulus said:

Nowt wrong with that gem John.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Good to see your work. Welcome, but don't fall down the rabbit holes astrophotography invariably digs for us.

Thank you very much. It's too late for the rabbit holes I'm afraid. I've already met the entire cast of Watership Down 😁

[Altocumulus]

Ah - so you'll be moving into Duncton Wood!

Hold onto your wallet.....