Harvest Moon, 4-panel mosaic, 2026-09-26

[turfpit]

A Harvest Moon, at 20° elevation, captured as a 4-panel mosaic on 26th Sept 2026 at 21:00. The original TIFF mosaic was 6248x6063 and 213Mb in size.
High resolution version at https://www.astrobin.com/full/gtcasa/0/

2026-09-26-2112_9-Moon_Stack2_F0380_DeconL_View_16b_stitch_v3.jpg (893.32 KiB) Viewed 1047 times

Equipment: Celestron AVX mount, Celestron C8, 0.63x reducer, UV-IR cut filter, JMI Motofocuser, Altair 183C camera.
Software: SharpCap, Biggsky, Microsft Image Composite Editor, GIMP.
Capture: SER, 5440×3648, RAW8, gain 100, exposure 8ms, 500 frames @ 9fps for each panel.
Processing: Biggsky autostack (76%, 65%, 77%, 50% frames stacked)+ deconvolution & denoise. Microsoft Image Composite Editor. GIMP for saturation, curves, sharpening. Scaled to 40% for forum.

4-panel mosaic captured at 22:00 with an Altair 183M using a Baader 610nm red pass filter. Biggsky stacked 89%, 90%, 89%, 90% in the 4 panels.

2026-09-26-2149_7-Moon_Stack2_F0444_Decon_View_16b_stitch_GIMP_scaled40p.jpg (896.31 KiB) Viewed 1047 times

Dave

[admin]

Hi Dave,

thanks for sharing - a nice pair of images

I always think of the moon as a bit of a paradoxical target - it's easy to get *something* of the moon, and certainly easier to capture than the planets or the sun, but getting just the right amount of processing so that your final image is neither fuzzy or over sharpened is actually a pretty tough challenge. I think you have got that bit right in both of these

cheers,

Robin

[turfpit]

Thanks Robin, only took 10 years to get there. SharpCap and BiggSky have made it possible to produce images such as these.

Dave

[kaymann]

You are inspiring me to give it a go when the Monsoon season calms down... Thank you for sharing these awesome photos!

[turfpit]

Thanks Randall.

Dave

[turfpit]

A reprocess of the data in post #1 using new functionality - mosaic, colour boost and unsharp mask - built into BiggSky. These are 6000x6000 images scaled down to 35% for the forum.

Frames_Mosaic_Calc_View_8b_scaled.jpg (983.56 KiB) Viewed 104 times

BiggSky process:

• Mosaic - stitch 4 panels

• Render CLAHE - Uniform, ClipLimit 0.004, NumTiles 8

• Color Boost 25

• Remove Color, Green

• UnSharpMask, amount 0.5, iterations 1, radius 4.4

• Crop

Decon_Tiled_View_16b_Mosaic_Sharpen_View_8b_scaled.jpg (819.2 KiB) Viewed 104 times

BiggSky process - mosaic, render, USM as above.


The mosaic map for the 4 tiles:

Frames_Mosaic_Layout.jpg (390.57 KiB) Viewed 104 times

Dave

[timh]

Really sharp, It's amazing how much room for improvement can be uncovered. I didn't know that was so much functionality to be found in Biggsky.

Seeing conditions here not so good for the Hunter's moon or Saturn recently. Near IR images quite nice though

[turfpit]

Thanks Tim.

The functionality around mosaics and sharpening with BiggSky was only released mid October. Going through some testing currently with v0.5.46, with a general release expected soon. I have stitched a 14-tile mosaic with the software. As usual with any software it takes some experimentation and effort to find the right settings. I think my mineral moons are looking quite 'relaxed' whilst still retaining detail.

Dave