Moon Terminator Mosaic - Apr 21

[brianb]

Taken a while to process this due to being away from my computer & a hard drive failure. Anyhow, here it is: a 13 frame mosaic of the terminator area of the Moon shot between 1957 UT and 2012 UT on April 21.


Celestron CPC1100, prime focus, Astronomik Planet Pro 742 IR pass filter, Imaging Source DMK41 camera.

Full size image (1300 x 5700 pixels, 1.3 MB JPEG) here: http://www.bbhvig.uklinux.net/Moon/Moon-100421-2005-mosaic.jpg

[Paul]

Brian, the fullsize is awesome, probably close to being the best ever terrestial lunar image. Folks, download the big version, it's well worth it!

[Carl O Beirnes]

Brian,

That is one of the best lunar images I've ever seen. The detail is outstanding as in the processing  Really Really well done You are turning out some top draw images.

Well done mate.

[brianb]

Thanks guys!

That is one of the best lunar images I've ever seen.

Hmmm, I don't think Nick Smith has much to worry about, yet. Maybe one of these days I'll get some steady seeing ... it was more than a bit "swimmy" & I'm surprised how well it turned out. Much credit to the author of Avistack which gives a real boost to lunar (& solar) surface imaging in unsteady conditions!

BTW for each of the 13 panes of the mosaic I shot an 800 frame AVI & stacked 300.

[markt]

Fantastic stuff Brian!    I really should make the leap from Registax to Avistack I think...

Incidentally, do you have (not necessarily with this image) any comparison shots you could share with and without that planet pro filter?  I'm a solar system imager at heart and are considering getting one at some point.   Got any images that would sell it to me? 

[brianb]

do you have (not necessarily with this image) any comparison shots you could share with and without that planet pro filter?

Loads of them. There's a particularly good example here: http://astrophotoweather.smfforfree4.com/index.php/topic,2242.0.html

With Mars, the longer the wavelength, the higher the contrast. This doesn't apply to other subjects but you do get the same improvement in resolution when the seeing is "iffy". There is less image movement, this more than compensates for the longer exposure necessary. If the seeing is really good you should get more resolution in the red, or even the green, because of the tighter diffraction pattern - maybe this would be more of an issue with smaller aperture scopes.

BTW I did try the 805 but the Imaging Source cameras are rather insensitive at that wavelength, the 742 is the one to get.

The Moon being essentially colourless, I don't think any more - I just bung in the PP 742 & get on with it!

[markt]

Thanks for that Brian, that's sold it for me