"Crater" Ina featured in the Astrobiscuit video Shooting the Blue Lake on the Moon is a 2.9 km × 1.9 km wide and 64 m deep depression located in Lacus Felicitatis. Unfortunately, I forgot to capture some blue data to reveal the blue color of Ina. Even though the data was captured under fair-good seeing conditions, some hints of smaller scale details are visible within Ina and the surrounding. For comparison, here is a photo of Ina captured by Apollo 17. I think caputering Ina under better seeing conditions, optimum illumination and a smaller pixel scale, would reveal some more of the features from the Apollo 17 image. Currently, it is hard to distinguish small craters from noise. Still really impressive what is possible with modern equipment under average-good seeing conditions.

The data was captured on the morning of Sep 6th 2023 in Northern Germany. According to the star test using Capella before the planetary and lunar imaging session, I think the seeing was fair-good (~ 6-7 on the Pickering Scale). Processing of the IR/G data is based on the tutorials Processing Lunar images with Photoshop by Damian Peach and Imaging the Moon: Capture and Process, Stack, Sharpen by Refreshing Views.

Revision B shows some IR data captured later this morning. The resolution is slightly smaller due to the longer wavelength. I also have the impression that the contrast is smaller compared to the G data, so I think the best compromise in terms of resolution and seeing is to capture lunar data  with a G filter.

If you want to process the data yourself, I uploaded the raw stack straight out of AS!3 here.

06.09.2023

Original Ina (G) 04:06 UT
Revision B Ina (IR) 04:43 UT

Celestron C14 Edge HD @ f=6650 mm (F/28), res = 0.09"/px
+ Celestron CGE Pro mount
+ Celestron EF
+ ZWO ASI 290 MM
+ Baader 2x VIP Barlow
+ ZWO EFW
+ Astronomik G filter
+ Baader IR (685 nm) filter
+ Tempest Cooler
+ Omegon Dew Heater
+ Astrozap Dew Shield for C 14

Very short imaging train: I simply screwed the Baader VIP Barlow into the nose piece of the ZWO EFW. However, the small pixel size of the ZWO ASI 290 MM leads to a pixel scale of 0.09"/px at a reasonable f-ratio of f/28.

G/IR: 5000 frame  SER movie
1x1 bin

recorded with Firecapture

Moon 59° above the horizon
Seeing: Pickering 6-7 (fair - good)

Postprocessing

IR/G

Autostakkert!3:
- Stacking 500 of 5000 frames
- Image Stabilization: Surface, Improved Tracking, Cropped
- Quality Estimator: Laplace, Noise Robust 5, Local
- Reference Frame: Autosize
- Minimum AP size = 104, Min Bright = 20, Multi-Scale

Registax:
- histogram correction to increase the brightness of the underexposed image
- wavelet sharpening using Wavelet filter Gaussian, step increment = 0, no linked wavelets:
layer 2 - 100, denoise & sharpen

Photoshop CS2:
- image crop
- level corrections to clip the black levels of the shadows
- unsharp mask (amount: 21%, radius: 1.9 px)
- sharpen
- slight noise reduction

Schwentinental (Germany)

-CS Daniel