Contains:  Solar system body or event
Moon - May 8th, 2022, Frank Chen

Moon - May 8th, 2022

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging
Moon - May 8th, 2022, Frank Chen

Moon - May 8th, 2022

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

This image was captured with a 4" APO (F7, 714mm focal length) and  without any barlow. The camera used has 1.45μm pixel sizes. This is a very small pixel size. The image sensor is on the focus of the telescope so that this is a direct focus astrophotograpy with very small pixel size camera. Not sure how many people ever did this in the similar way (direct focus planetary photography with very small pixel size camera).

It is a big challange to process the image produced by the camera because the raw data has different behavior comparing to big pixel size cameras. It took me 3 days to think and try how to process it. Fortunately I succeeded to complete the work finally.

The image is a 6-panel mosaic, 1500 frames for each panel. Since the development of the camera is still not completed yet, I can't use the full resolution of the camera when I captured the Moon. If we capture it at full resolution on that day then only 2 or 3 panels are needed.

A berief description of the method and software to process the image are as follows:
1. Capture                        - Sharpcap
2. Stack                            - AutoStakkert
3. Convolution                 - PixInsight
4. Sharpen                       - RegiStax 6
5. Deconvolution            - PixInsight
6. Panel combination    - Photoshop
7. Deconvolutoin            - PixInsight

Perhaps I shoud merge step 5 and 7. The reason for why there is step 7 is that after some hours later of step 6 I want to sharpen the image a bit more, but I was too lazy to roll back to step 5 and mosaic the panels again.

And yes, I did slight convolution during the process.

Comparing to 2.9μm pixel size, 1.45μm pixel size means it has 2X sample rate in each dimension, ie., it works like a 2.9μm camera + 2X barlow. Things may be easy if we do not need use a barlow when we do planetary photography:
Don't need pay money to buy a barlow
Don't need to worry about the dust on barlow
Don't need to worry about the optical performance of a barlow
Easier to install equipments
Bigger FOV while sensor frame size not changed
Less panels needed for mosaic
Easier to find object
Camera can be installed with best back-focus
...
And, if all of above are uselesss, the camera still have a feature to make the user comfortable - it can be hardware bin2 to 2.9um pixel size.

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Moon - May 8th, 2022, Frank Chen