Live Stacks vs The Moon April 15 & 16 2019

[BlackWikkett]

Had our best skies of 2019 in northeast Georgia, USA. Started before sunset grabbing shots of the Moon and ending just before 6 AM the next morning on M20 as it rose high enough for me to image. Always a challenge to get good shots when you have an almost full moon up most of the night. I attempt to keep the target selection pointing the opposite direction of the Moon. The RC6 and ASI294 combination gives a great field of view and allows for relative short exposure.

Equipment:
RC 6 f/9 1370mm, ZWO ASI294 MC Pro, IDAS D1 LPS filter, iOptron CEM60 mount, PHD2 with ASI290 mini guider on 50mm Stellarvue guidescope.

Images captured at 60 sec, 300 gain using master flat and dark. Used dithering every 4th frame. Final SharpCap images saved exactly as seen as 8 bit png, Edit in Photoshop for color balance, saturation, noise reduction, contrast and cropping out bad edges due to dithering.

Further details can be found following link to flickr.com

Moon 20_33_43_lapl4_ap322_Drizzle15_conv_wavelet by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M3 PS Edit Stack_20frames_1200s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M82 PS Edit Stack_19frames_1140s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M81 PS Edit Stack_128frames_7680s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr
(edit fix typo was originally listed as M82 corrected to M81)

M104 PS Edit Stack_32frames_1920s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M13 PS Edit Stack_18frames_1080s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M57 PS Edit Stack_17frames_1020s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

SH2-101 PS Edit Stack_52frames_3120s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M16 PS Edit Stack_35frames_2100s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

Next two is M20 as it came out of SharpCap Live Stack then with my Photoshop Edits. This was a struggle as each frame that came into SC had to have the R G B color adjusted to balance out the rising Sun's sky glow.

M20 Stack_28frames_1680s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

M20 PS Edit Stack_28frames_1680s_WithDisplayStretch by Black Wikkett, on Flickr

Thanks for having a look

[numchuck]

very , very well done .

[AndyBooth]

Great shots indeed.

[BlackWikkett]

Thanks for your kind words.

[nexusjeep]

Very impressive had two reasonable nights in the UK Sat / Sun so feeling a little tired this morning early night tonight as back to work tomorrow as sleeping at the desk could be an issue.

Cheers
Nick

[turfpit]

Another epic shift there Wickett. A good return with a big moon. I particularly like the M16/M20 images. Those 2 objects are always a struggle for me at 53N.

Dave

[BlackWikkett]

Thanks Dave. M16 and M20 is still fairly low in the sky for me and they need to be captured in the early AM. Really kind of early in the season to go for them but I think it was still a good result for the amount of time spent.