Lunar images, June 2019
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2019 7:41 pm
Living at latitude 53N, the months of June/July result in a very narrow window for imaging. I will post my efforts at capturing the moon during the month, as realistically, it is the best object available to me.
10,000 frame capture, 44% waxing moon showing craters Aristoteles, Eudoxus, Endymion, Atlas, Hercules.
This capture was an experiment at imaging the moon during daylight using an IR685 filter. The image was captured around 10 minutes after sunset, when the sky was still blue. High res image at https://www.astrobin.com/full/409771/0/?nc=user
Equipment: Celestron AVX mount, Celestron C8 SCT, JMI Motorised Focuser, Teleskop f6.3 reducer, Teleskop filter drawer, Altair IR685 filter, QHY5LII-M camera.
Capture: SharpCap 3.2. Focus was obtained by zooming to 150% in the capture software and using the crater Aristoteles which was large enough to not be in shadow and have some features on the crater floor. Exposure was established using the 'Highlight Over Exposed' tool in Sharpcap, with the log histogram being 60% at the right-hand-side. A short test video was taken, replayed in PIPP SER Player, then stacked in Autostakkert3 to ensure a good capture was made.
Capture Settings: SER, 1280x960, 14 fps, MONO-8, 10,000 frames, gain=18, exposure=6ms, offset=1.
Processing: The best 20% of the 10,000 frames were stacked in AS!3. Approximately 800 Alignment Points were used. The frame at 20% was reported as having a Quality of 83%. Processing of the AS!3 sharpened _conv.tif was finalised in GIMP 2.10 with a crop, application of Unsharp Mask, Contrast & brightness.
[Note: the SER file was 12Gb in size and processing in Autostakkert3 took around 8 minutes on a Quad Core Xeon, 16Gb memory workstation.]
At the centre of the image can be seen the crater Aristoteles and below that Eudoxus. To the right is the group Endymion, Atlas, Hercules. Between the two groups is Lacus Mortis. Detailed information on these craters can be found in the Virtual Moon Atlas software.
Dave
[QHY5LII-M]
Output Format=SER file (*.ser)
Binning=1x1
Capture Area=1280x960
Colour Space=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Force Still Mode=Off
Enable Live Broadcast=Off
USB Traffic=0
Speed=1
Offset=1
Amp Noise Reduction=On
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Gain=18
Exposure=6.18263847704556
Timestamp Frames=Off
Contrast=0
Brightness=0
Gamma=1
Banding Threshold=35
Banding Suppression=0
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
#Black Point
Display Black Point=0
#MidTone Point
Display MidTone Point=0.5
#White Point
Display White Point=1
TimeStamp=2019-06-09T21:04:18.8609420Z
SharpCapVersion=3.2.5994.0
10,000 frame capture, 44% waxing moon showing craters Aristoteles, Eudoxus, Endymion, Atlas, Hercules.
This capture was an experiment at imaging the moon during daylight using an IR685 filter. The image was captured around 10 minutes after sunset, when the sky was still blue. High res image at https://www.astrobin.com/full/409771/0/?nc=user
Equipment: Celestron AVX mount, Celestron C8 SCT, JMI Motorised Focuser, Teleskop f6.3 reducer, Teleskop filter drawer, Altair IR685 filter, QHY5LII-M camera.
Capture: SharpCap 3.2. Focus was obtained by zooming to 150% in the capture software and using the crater Aristoteles which was large enough to not be in shadow and have some features on the crater floor. Exposure was established using the 'Highlight Over Exposed' tool in Sharpcap, with the log histogram being 60% at the right-hand-side. A short test video was taken, replayed in PIPP SER Player, then stacked in Autostakkert3 to ensure a good capture was made.
Capture Settings: SER, 1280x960, 14 fps, MONO-8, 10,000 frames, gain=18, exposure=6ms, offset=1.
Processing: The best 20% of the 10,000 frames were stacked in AS!3. Approximately 800 Alignment Points were used. The frame at 20% was reported as having a Quality of 83%. Processing of the AS!3 sharpened _conv.tif was finalised in GIMP 2.10 with a crop, application of Unsharp Mask, Contrast & brightness.
[Note: the SER file was 12Gb in size and processing in Autostakkert3 took around 8 minutes on a Quad Core Xeon, 16Gb memory workstation.]
At the centre of the image can be seen the crater Aristoteles and below that Eudoxus. To the right is the group Endymion, Atlas, Hercules. Between the two groups is Lacus Mortis. Detailed information on these craters can be found in the Virtual Moon Atlas software.
Dave
[QHY5LII-M]
Output Format=SER file (*.ser)
Binning=1x1
Capture Area=1280x960
Colour Space=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Force Still Mode=Off
Enable Live Broadcast=Off
USB Traffic=0
Speed=1
Offset=1
Amp Noise Reduction=On
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Gain=18
Exposure=6.18263847704556
Timestamp Frames=Off
Contrast=0
Brightness=0
Gamma=1
Banding Threshold=35
Banding Suppression=0
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
#Black Point
Display Black Point=0
#MidTone Point
Display MidTone Point=0.5
#White Point
Display White Point=1
TimeStamp=2019-06-09T21:04:18.8609420Z
SharpCapVersion=3.2.5994.0