First (moon) light for me.

[ollypenrice]

Hi all,

Only the FSQ85 was available for a first lunar play so not enough FL, but I tried the kit out anyway. 3 panel mosaic with DMK 21 and a lot of guessing on unfamiliar things like gamma and gain and FPS... So much to find out about.

Olly

[Paxo]

Your conversion from the darkside is nearly complete Olly. Lots of detail, and I can't see the seems, jobs a good un.

Steve..

[brianb]

Looks good to me Olly!

With the DMK41 there's hardly ever any need to change the frame rate from 15 fps. With the Moon at anything other than a very thin crescent and with the sort of image scale you have there, gain at minimum will give a nice short exposure (I was getting 1/90 sec at f/7 last night). Increasing the gamma will give better light in the terminator area but I don't think it makes much difference whether you do this in the camera or in post production. FYI my small scale shots (3 panes covering the whole moon) are being processed as best 100 frames stacked out of 400 frames shot. The larger scale movies I shot (at f/14), I needed to pull the gain up to 400 to get a reasonable shutter speed as the seeing was bad, I think I'll be stacking 200 out of 800.

[ollypenrice]

Thanks both. I had gain at minimum but I see the point - to get shorter exposures, and I guess the stack kills the noise?

As for the joins, nothing to do with me. Windows ICE did the whole thing in one click leaving me embarrassed and vaguely humiliated by my superflousness!

Olly

[Guest]

I love the contrast - it really brings out the rays of the craters like Copernicus.

[brianb]

I guess the stack kills the noise?

Yes, just the same as in deep sky imaging.

I've uploaded my small version, you can see it here ... still working on the big one. 0535 - 0537 UT, William Optics FLT110, prime focus, W29 (deep red) filter, DMK41, three frame mosaic, 0.5x resize.

[ollypenrice]

Yes, just the same as in deep sky imaging.

I've uploaded my small version, you can see it here ... still working on the big one. 0535 - 0537 UT, William Optics FLT110, prime focus, W29 (deep red) filter, DMK41, three frame mosaic, 0.5x resize.

Very fine, Brian. Subtle and with much more deilcacy of touch than I managed. Must try this red-for-luminance idea.

Olly

[brianb]

Must try this red-for-luminance idea.

It helps kill the atmospheric dispersion, and the seeing is usually steadier in longer wavelengths. There's nothing magic about the W29 filter, you could try your deep sky Ha narrowband filter, that would probably work very well.

[lunator]

Olly

looks good for the initial effort

Cheers

Ian