20220109 - Moon 43% - One small step closer to the moon
What’s in the picture(s) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoonQuote: “The
Moon is
Earth's only
natural satellite. At about one-quarter the diameter of Earth (comparable to the width of
Australia), it is the largest natural satellite in the
Solar System relative to the size of a major planet,[f] the
fifth largest satellite in the Solar System overall, and larger than any known
dwarf planet.”
What was the experience
I hadn’t done any real lunar shots up until now. A couple of try-outs, testing the approach (single shots vs. movie-capture), trying the software setup, etc …. But nothing really fundamental
A couple of days ago, a clear night, and the moon at 43%, and in plain sight. Although the rig is set up for DSO capture with a mono camera, I figured I could capture the moon mono in Luminance. I made a couple of short movies, 1ms exposures, high gain, stacked the whole thing (28% of the frames) in AutoStakkert, and started to play around a bit in PixInsight to enhance the detail “by the eye” (unSharpMask, LocalHistogram), based on the experience of enhancing the detail in nebulae.
Didn’t get the image 100% sharp enough, to my taste. Not sure if that’s down to the data or the processing. Not the right, nor perfect way to do it, but I am edging another step closer in capturing lunar surfaces.
How it was done
Scope: TS140 APO (FL 910mm)
Mount: CEM70G
Camera: ASI2600MM Pro
Photons: 20220109 L-filter 120s 1ms Gain 378 RAW8 1531 frames 28% stacked
Processing: AutoStakkert, PixInsight (Mac)
What have I learned from this
For a long time, I thought that lunar-shots would be out of reach, until I installed the planetary camera on the scope. Given that I continued to shoot DSOs, that got held back each time. However, this approach with the mono-camera, although not ideal, wil allow me to start learning more on how to capture, process and enhance lunar and planetary. The image isn’t perfect, didn’t really use wavelets for the sharpening, but … it’s another step closer to the moon.
That’s what counts …
Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭
Follow me @astrowaut
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