sharp images of the moon

[iamjulian]

Apologies if this has been addressed before but I couldn't find much using search... I have taken a couple of moon photos at prime focus but I cannot seem to get the focus right. I have a Canon 400d so I cannot use liveview. Looking though the camera view finder it looks really sharp and there is plenty of travel either side of the point of focus so I am guessing the camera/scope combination is capable of focusing.

The results haven't been too bad, but I cannot get anywhere near as sharp as some of the lunar photos I have seen here on SGL. What I am wondering, is whether taking multiple photos and then stacking them in DSS is going to do any good, or would that just over-expose the image? I've tweaked focus back and forth but still cannot get anything spot on. Is there anything else that I could be doing wrong? Thanks!

[Cornelius Varley]

Alot depends on the photographs you have been comparing. Focussing with a DSLR can be tricky especially when looking through the view finder. Have you tried downloading the photographs directly to a computer and examined them there ? You can tweak the focus back and forth untill you obtain a sharp focus. Try focussing on a star using a focussing mask (Hartrman / Bahtinov ) then move move back to the moon.

Taking a number images will also help. Once you have adjusted the RAW image files save them as TIFFs and stack them in Registax (I think you can also stack RAWs in Registax v5). Final adjustments in Registax include wavelet processing which will help to bring out the detail.

Peter