A disappointing attempt at my first Lunar Mosaic

[AlexB]

Hello all,

I'm 'fairly' new to all this astro-trick-photography But the other night (18th Jan) I thought I'd head over to my telescope and give some moon shots a go.

The conditions looked pretty good...

After doing a bit of mooching around Orion I decided to get started with the photos. But I was struggling to get a good exposure with relatively swift shutter speeds... I then realised I had my 5x barlow seated inside my 2x barlow! I didn't even know that they worked like that!

I'm not sure what this issue is, but I suspect it is both collimation and dew! Any advice would be gratefully received.

Well, after much messing around, I managed to take a set of pictures which I could use for the mosaic, unfortunately, due to the dew/collimation issues, the results are not brilliant and as such I didn't want to spend too much time post-processing them!

Original Mosaic:

UPDATE: New Image redone using MS ICE and a little tweaking of levels in PS7

Compiled from 7 images taken through a Skywatcher 200P on EQ5 using a Nikon D7000 and Revelation 5x Barlow. Each image shot at ISO100 at around 1/100th of a second.

Thanks for looking.

[Stephen]

I don't think that's too bad at all! Though my newbie opinion doesn't count for much What did you use to "stick" the images together?

[AlexB]

Thank you. I used Paint.NET (free!) as Photoshop 7 wouldn't let me cut and paste the massive 16MP files!!

[jgs001]

Barlow's multiple... it looks like you have some internal reflections going on in the barlows when you stacked them...

The mosaic has come out quite well. The difficulty here, the frame rate on an SLR is too slow to enable you to cut through the atmospherics easily, that means you're at the mercy of what happens across a single image. If you get a webcam, the higher frame rate will make a big difference... Obviously you'll end up with a lot more work and stitching needed...

[AlexB]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm sure the 'reflection' did appear when only using one barlow as well, just managed to not be visible on the mosaic constituent photos! I'll have to dig out my other images and check.

[luis]

The last one got right and fine. I like it!

[jgs001]

Alex, I've had that effect with barlows myself... I'm sure it's there on their own, but the stacking makes the issue for worse.

[luis]

Alex, I've had that effect with barlows myself... .

Me too

[WayBig]

Try downloading microsoft's free "ICE" (image composite editor...or something like that) software - it can automatically stitch photos together and adjust the brightness for you. Someone of the forum recommended that to me, it saves loads of time.

[jgs001]

and if/when Ice doesn't quite do it right (as happened with mine from earlier this week) try iMerge

[AlexB]

Many Thanks for the hints and tips guys. Much Appreciated.

[AlexB]

I gave iMerge a try but it didn't want TIF's so I downloaded ICE and ... wow, I wish I knew about that yesterday after spending ours manually stitching the image together! lol.

I played with the levels, not sure whether that's better or a little too vivid now. Opinions welcome.

Thanks for the pointers chaps! Really Appreciated.

First Post

[smerral]

The bright patch could be an internal reflection; I once had that problem and found it was from my webcam adapter. Or it could be a light leak - are there any lights around you or do you have a dark site?

Stiching: I have used Autostitch

to good effect

[todd8137]

great pics have more faith in ya self

[mdstuart]

Very nice, so much contrast in that image!

Mark

[AlexB]

I just can't wait until I can sort my self out with tracking capabilities!!

Live view is handy too as a short-cut to Mirror Up mode!

Polar Alignment was a tad tricky as I could barely make out the dark lines which I needed to align against!

I will need to check my mirror next time I go to my 'scope as it almost looked liked it was dusty as well as damp, god knows how though as its been covered and stored for months!

My next step I think is a dew heater / shield and Laser collimator. This is not a cheap hobby lol!

[jgs001]

Liveview for mirror lockup works fine for the short exposures involved for the moon, but it's not so good for deep sky... the long exposures will be affected by amp glow, if you trigger the shutter with live view active.

As for cheap... it can be, but not so much if you want to get into imaging...

[AlexB]

Thanks for the tip, I'll make sure I take LV off before bulbing!

[jgs001]

If you're using a timer remote, set a 2 second self timer, mirror lockup and add 2 seconds to your exposures