Contains:  Solar system body or event
Clavius / Moretus and surrounding region, rdk_CA

Clavius / Moretus and surrounding region

Clavius / Moretus and surrounding region, rdk_CA

Clavius / Moretus and surrounding region

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

Clavius is one of my favorite features on the moon’s surface, perhaps partly because it is the location of the lunar base in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had wanted to capture a decent image of it for quite a while. Conditions on this evening were as good as they could be for where I live. The main weakness in the imaging process, as the HAL computer from 2001 would say, "could only be due to human error!"

The moon was 74% illuminated at the time of capture and was 70 degrees above the horizon. This panorama is a composite of 4 images stitched together (mainly to also capture Moretus in the FOV as well). The camera settings for the IMX178 M camera were:

Gain: 310
Frame rate: 30 fps
Exposure: 3.35 ms
ROI: 3096x2080

I captured a total of 10000 frames for each panel, and stacked the best 35% (align point size 200, ~380 points per frame). I then sharpened the image using Registax. Final tweaks were made in PhotoShop, mainly to adjust contrast and brightness.

Comments

Histogram

Clavius / Moretus and surrounding region, rdk_CA