The Moon on Jan 12, 2019. Afocal eyepiece projection, 25mm eyepiece to Samsung Perx (5Mb,) on a 6 inch, F/8 Newtonian.
I finally tried my phone with the afocal camera holder and the dob I use from time to time. Yes, it works. But, the image quality is definitely poor compared to my DSLR’s.
A couple of nights later, I setup the TV-85 refractor/Canon T3 combo and took some shots. One was of the moon before the sun had set. Here it is in two versions – as taken and converted to look like a nighttime shot:
The Moon on Jan 14, 2019. 1/400 sec @ ISO 100, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.The Moon on Jan 14, 2019. 1/400 sec @ ISO 100, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6. Nighttime simulation.
I was setting up for some deep sky and the moon made a convenient test target. Later that night, I shot some images of Comet 64P. Unfortunately, I was cut off by clouds after only 10 sub-images. I was going to just throw this out, but I managed to make an image out of the paltry amount of data, so it is not a complete loss.
Check it out:
Comet 64P on Jan 14, 2019, 01:12 UT. 10×180 sec @ ISO 400, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6.
2 panel mosaic of the Moon, taken at dawn on Nov 3, 2018. RD Sony IMX224, TV-85 at F/5.6.
A beautiful moon at dawn and I just couldn’t resist grabbing some images of it. I had to piece this mosaic together, since the Rising Tech Sony IMX224 cam does not have a wide enough field of view to get the whole thing in one shot.
Plato and the Alpine Valley, Feb 26, 2018. RT Sony IMX224, 6 inch, F/8 with Televue 2x Barlow (F/16.). Best 25 out of 100 frames.
For this imaging session of the Moon, I wanted to try shooting at 2400 mm focal length using a 2x Barlow with my 6 inch, F/8 Newtonian scope and Sony IMX224 eyepiece cam. This was done in preparation to get some shots of Jupiter I’ve been meaning to do. Conditions for this session were marginal, at best, however.
I had clouds galore and seeing was very poor. I only managed three captures before the clouds came in force and shut me down. At least I got a chance to try the rig on something easy before I attempt capturing Jupiter with it.
I left the mount setup outside and took in the scope and laptop, thinking that I could get Jupiter when I woke up the following morning. Unfortunately, the skies were no better than the night before and although I could see Jupiter, clouds were coming and going over it. So, no luck with getting Jupiter, just yet. Maybe next time…
Tycho Crater – Feb 26 2018. Best 25 frames of 100. RT Sony IMX224, 6 in, F/8 Newt.
A view of Tycho crater on the Moon taken Feb 26, 2018. It was taken with a 6 inch, F/8 Newtonian and a RT Sony IMX224 eyepiece cam. Best 25 frames out of 100.
Northern area of the Moon taken on Feb 26, 2018. RT Sony IMX224, 6in, F/8 Newt, best 16 frames of 100.
First of 3 videos of the moon captured towards the end of February, 2018. Poor conditions, but I was just testing a rather long 6 inch, F/8 Newtonian on the Atlas EQ-G mount. Pretty shaky rig, but usable for moon and planetary imaging.
Yep, the Supermoon lives again. 50 frames stacked per panel and two panels for this shot (top and bottom.)
The moon still appears full and tonight (Sunday, Dec 3, 2017) is supposed to be the night when it is actually at its largest and closest to Earth at perigee.
It looked bigger to me the night before, but I guess that was because the weather was better. 🙂 To find out, I made an animated GIF that compares the 4 days worth of images:
Animated GIF of the Moon for 4 days starting with Nov 30 and ending on Dec 3, 2017.
It does look like the 4th moon is bigger than the others! So, it was worth it to re-setup the scope and get the shot. Lucky for me the sky cleared long enough to do it. Later that evening, the clouds arrived in force and it hasn’t been clear since.
The Supermoon of Dec 2, 2017. Two panel mosaic taken with a TV-85 at F/5.6 and a Rising Tech Sony IMX224 eyepiece cam. Best 100 frames for each panel out of 200 in each AVI file.
The full “Supermoon” of Dec, 2017 taken on the night of the 2nd at about 11:30 PM local time (Dec 3, 2017, 05:30 UT.) Not too bad seeing and just a few high clouds that I had to wait out.
I have another version from data earlier in the evening. At about 7:30 PM CST, the moon was high enough to shoot. I shot 2 AVI’s with 200 frames each and processed those in IRIS:
The Supermoon of Dec 2, 2017, 7:30pm CST. Two panel mosaic taken with a TV-85 at F/5.6 and a Rising Tech Sony IMX224 eyepiece cam. Best 100 frames for each panel out of 200 in each AVI file.
The Moon on Nov 30, 2017. 2 panel mosaic of 50 frames each, TV-85 at F/5.6, Toupcam Sony IMX224 eyepiece camera.
On Thursday, November 30, 2017 I tried my luck with “lucky imaging” of the moon. I set the capture to 100 frames each and took top, middle and bottom images of a waxing moon a few days from full.
I ended up using only the top and bottom panels since there was enough overlap with the TV-85 and the Toupcam IMX224 camera in those two panels. Each panel is the best 50 frames.
After a basic levels adjustment for all layers , I used the wavelets filter in the Astra Image Photoshop plug-in to do an initial sharpening of the merged image and then a SmartSharpen filter to finish it off. No other processing was done to the image beyond the above.
Update: Friday, Dec 1, 2017 moon image with the same setup as the above.
The Moon on Dec 1, 2017. 2-panel mosaic with 100 frames per panel. It was taken with a TV-85 at F/5.6 and a Rising Tech Sony IMX 225 CMOS camera.
The Moon on Oct 23, 2017. 1 x 0.5 sec @ ISO 400, TV-85 at F/5.6, Canon T3.
The moon was low and setting in the west when I took this shot. Earth-shine was very pretty and I tried to capture how it looked, but the bright part always gets over-exposed. But, you get the idea. 🙂
Images of Comets, Nebulae, Galaxies and Star Clusters
