Once in a....... (Niall MacNeill)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Once in a.......

Blue Moon.....
I have always loved looking at the Moon in the daytime. It is wonderful how the blue light of our atmosphere infuses our satellite.

I set up my C11 with a Canon EOS 5D mkII at Prime Focus. The partially illuminated Moon fits the FOV nicely. I started by taking a video and processing it in the normal way, as I would a planetary image. I also took single shots with the DSLR, in a mosaic pattern to encompass more of the blue of the sky. I then used Photomerge in Photoshop to merge the panels. On examining the results, it was clear the image derived from the mosaic of single images was superior. Where the object is large like the Moon and seeing effects therefore relatively small, Lucky Imaging does not seem to offer an advantage and in fact gives inferior results in my experience. This is consistent with a previous occasion where a friend used her DSLR on my scope to produce an image and I used the Lucky Imaging technique. Her image was likewise superior, even though I had been trying to demonstrate the power of Lucky Imaging. Oops.
The mosaic was quite challenging because there was an inevitable amount of vignetting in each frame. I used Photoshop's gradient tool to smooth the background from representative areas of the sky and that worked really well.
The portrait view is a bit unusual but I feel suits the just gibbous Moon.

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Description: Replaced mosaic segment for the lower limb with a sharper version

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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
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