Recent moon image

[Ernicus]

Cool stuff. I look forward to seeing what you can do.

 

[TCampbell]

VERY NICE!

I recognized the image the moment I saw it because I also took a photo of the moon last night and I noticed the Copernicus crater just at the edge of the lunar terminator (it's the crater roughly in the middle of the moon just at the edge of the day/night sides) -- so I knew your photo had to be taken the same night as mine.



This one was taken through a Meade 80mm f/6 ED Triplet Apochromatic Refractor using a Canon 60Da (ISO 100, 1/60th sec.)

I had hoped to shoot some faint-fuzzys but the "seeing" wasn't too good, so I decided to go for a subject that I knew would be a bit more cooperative.

 

[Aloicious]

Cool stuff. I look forward to seeing what you can do.

I've done some wide angle stuff and solar imaging before, but haven't got much in the way of DSO's or faint objects...here's some older posts with some of my earlier stuff, some is better than others, its a really difficult area of photography, but very rewarding when done well, I'm still a newb when it comes to astro imaging, but I'm learning:

recent solar eclipse shots: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/285026-ring-fire-solar-eclipse.html

wide angle star trails: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/285027-star-trails-middle-nowhere.html

Milky way and Antares pics: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...6-new-milky-way-antares-astrophotography.html

old moon images with previous equipment when I was just starting to learn astrophotography: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...hooting-moon-my-attempt-astrophotography.html

 

[LizardKing]

Man, you're my new hero jajajaja... I mean, at first you depressed me... Cause just about an hour ago I took a photo of the moon I was really proud of... And now it's like a 50kb GIF in comparison to this jajaja
But then I saw the equipment you used and everything was nice again jaja... You're playing on a different league :thumbup:

Gear put aside, I think you did a really amazing job here. Both the shot and processing are great. I can honestly say it's the best picture of the moon I've seen jaja
I prefer the first edit, by the way... Although I'd probably desaturate it like you did with the second one, to get rid of that cast... but it's kinda nice anyway... some yellows/oranges at the top and blues at the bottom.

Thanks for showing this and in such quality!

Regards,
LizardKing

edit: here's my humble image, by the way

 

[Aloicious]

VERY NICE!

I recognized the image the moment I saw it because I also took a photo of the moon last night and I noticed the Copernicus crater just at the edge of the lunar terminator (it's the crater roughly in the middle of the moon just at the edge of the day/night sides) -- so I knew your photo had to be taken the same night as mine.



This one was taken through a Meade 80mm f/6 ED Triplet Apochromatic Refractor using a Canon 60Da (ISO 100, 1/60th sec.)

I had hoped to shoot some faint-fuzzys but the "seeing" wasn't too good, so I decided to go for a subject that I knew would be a bit more cooperative.

thats a great shot. I've got a orion short tube 80mm which I use as a guidescope, but I've been having trouble with it recently, I need to do some investigating. I was also hoping to get some faint-fuzzies too, but got frustrated when it wouldn't guide correctly.

I like the image, the coloring looks interesting. what area of MI were you in when you shot it? (I used to live in Lansing, and Grand Rapids), is that coloring from post processing, or is that smog related?

 

[Aloicious]

Man, you're my new hero jajajaja... I mean, at first you depressed me... Cause just about an hour ago I took a photo of the moon I was really proud of... And now it's like a 50kb GIF in comparison to this jajaja
But then I saw the equipment you used and everything was nice again jaja... You're playing on a different league :thumbup:

Gear put aside, I think you did a really amazing job here. Both the shot and processing are great. I can honestly say it's the best picture of the moon I've seen jaja
I prefer the first edit, by the way... Although I'd probably desaturate it like you did with the second one, to get rid of that cast... but it's kinda nice anyway... some yellows/oranges at the top and blues at the bottom.

Thanks for showing this and in such quality!

Regards,
LizardKing

edit: here's my humble image, by the way

thats a pretty good image, I'm guessing that was with the 28-300, right? you got a good exposure from it, the fine details on the surface really require a telescope to resolve so don't feel too bad. it's better than my first attempts at shooting the moon.

yeah I'm with you on the desaturation, that blue cast kinda bothers me.

 

[LizardKing]

Yeap, the 28-300... Tried to do my best to focus on live view, but it's a little soft in some parts... Anyway, maybe tomorrow I'll do better jaja... That's the good thing about shooting the moon

 

[LizardKing]

BTW... In one of the links you pasted, you say you stacked 8-9 images... may I ask what kind of stacking you did?
I'm really trying to get better pictures of the moon everytime I have a nice clear sky, so I'm always looking for tips and ideas on this matter... And the one I uploaded before is actually the result of 2 different shots... But I was just playing to try and get a better outcome jaja
Thanks in advance!

 

[TCampbell]

I like the image, the coloring looks interesting. what area of MI were you in when you shot it? (I used to live in Lansing, and Grand Rapids), is that coloring from post processing, or is that smog related?

I'm near Detroit -- this image was taken in Lincoln Park (Hector J Robinson Observatory). The light pollution from the city is miserable here, but I didn't do any color adjustments (just levels, highlights and sharpening.) The 60Da is the astrophotography edition of the Canon 60D. They replace the standard IR/UV filter with a different filter that allows significantly more light to pass in the IR (about 3x more than the filter in a normal DSLR.) Since IR penetrates better, it makes the camera much more sensitive -- you can take shorter exposures and get more detail (which is what convinced me to buy it. Since the camera doesn't have the normal UV/IR filter found in most DSLRs and is significantly more sensitive in IR, the colors come through a bit different. It's normal for this type of camera. I could have tweaked the colors around, but chose to leave it alone. I've only had this camera for a week and have been too busy to use it much -- so I've only taken a handful of images with it.

Several members of my club own the camera already. I took a photo through a Meade 8" RC scope of M51 just a day or two after another club member imaged it with his 60Da through the same scope. I was really impressed with their image -- considering it was just a DSLR and not a $5k cooled imaging sensor from someone like SBIG, Finger Lakes, Apogee, etc. My 5D II took a much longer exposure and didn't capture nearly as much detail as the 60Da. After seeing enough shots, I knew I wanted a DSLR for astrophotography.

You can modify your own DSLR (for some reason, Canon Rebel bodies are VERY popular for this -- the Gary Honis website has detailed instructions on how to modify the camera (for the brave) and a service that lets you mail in your camera he'll do it for you (for the cowards... like me.) Regardless of whether you do it or he does it -- it does void your warranty (of course.) The 60Da basically lets you have a "modified" DSLR for astrophotography *except* that since it comes from Canon this way, the warranty is intact.

If you try to use it as a normal camera, you get off-normal color balance. But you can buy a filter from Astronomik (they call it the "OWB" filter -- for "original white balance"). It snaps into the camera housing behind the lens so you don't have to buy thread-on filters for every size lens you own.

 

[Carny]

is jaja ha ha in spanish or portugese or somehting

 

[LizardKing]

is jaja ha ha in spanish or portugese or somehting

I honestly don't know how to answer that... was thinking for a clever answer but it's kinda late and the brain is asking for a good night sleep... what do you mean really?

 

[480sparky]

Sparky, is that celestron a 9.25" SCT? it seems larger than the 8" scopes I'm used to in comparison with the camera body.

11".

 

[Aloicious]

BTW... In one of the links you pasted, you say you stacked 8-9 images... may I ask what kind of stacking you did?
I'm really trying to get better pictures of the moon everytime I have a nice clear sky, so I'm always looking for tips and ideas on this matter... And the one I uploaded before is actually the result of 2 different shots... But I was just playing to try and get a better outcome jaja
Thanks in advance!

you don't need to worry about stacking with the moon, basically stacking for astro images combines the light from the exposures to get a rough equivalent of a single long exposure. for example, you could take a single exposure lasting 3 hours, but it would be VERY difficult to keep everything tight and tracked for that long on a single exposure, where you could do 36 5 minute exposures, and have a much better ability to keep everything sharp and tracked well, and then stack them together to combine the light from them all together to get roughly the same total exposure....there are some programs that are made to do the stacking, like registax, is one, as well as others, I think for those images you're talking about I just used photoshop CS4, which is okay, but since it's not made to be an astrophotography tool to start with, there are some others out there that are a bit better.

but since the moon is bright enough to capture a proper exposure in a much more normal speed, that kind of stacking isn't really needed.

I like the image, the coloring looks interesting. what area of MI were you in when you shot it? (I used to live in Lansing, and Grand Rapids), is that coloring from post processing, or is that smog related?

I'm near Detroit -- this image was taken in Lincoln Park (Hector J Robinson Observatory). The light pollution from the city is miserable here, but I didn't do any color adjustments (just levels, highlights and sharpening.) The 60Da is the astrophotography edition of the Canon 60D. They replace the standard IR/UV filter with a different filter that allows significantly more light to pass in the IR (about 3x more than the filter in a normal DSLR.) Since IR penetrates better, it makes the camera much more sensitive -- you can take shorter exposures and get more detail (which is what convinced me to buy it. Since the camera doesn't have the normal UV/IR filter found in most DSLRs and is significantly more sensitive in IR, the colors come through a bit different. It's normal for this type of camera. I could have tweaked the colors around, but chose to leave it alone. I've only had this camera for a week and have been too busy to use it much -- so I've only taken a handful of images with it.

Several members of my club own the camera already. I took a photo through a Meade 8" RC scope of M51 just a day or two after another club member imaged it with his 60Da through the same scope. I was really impressed with their image -- considering it was just a DSLR and not a $5k cooled imaging sensor from someone like SBIG, Finger Lakes, Apogee, etc. My 5D II took a much longer exposure and didn't capture nearly as much detail as the 60Da. After seeing enough shots, I knew I wanted a DSLR for astrophotography.

You can modify your own DSLR (for some reason, Canon Rebel bodies are VERY popular for this -- the Gary Honis website has detailed instructions on how to modify the camera (for the brave) and a service that lets you mail in your camera he'll do it for you (for the cowards... like me.) Regardless of whether you do it or he does it -- it does void your warranty (of course.) The 60Da basically lets you have a "modified" DSLR for astrophotography *except* that since it comes from Canon this way, the warranty is intact.

If you try to use it as a normal camera, you get off-normal color balance. But you can buy a filter from Astronomik (they call it the "OWB" filter -- for "original white balance"). It snaps into the camera housing behind the lens so you don't have to buy thread-on filters for every size lens you own.

yeah, I've read about the 60da, it sounds pretty nice, I got an olympus E510 for practically nothing that I've been experimenting with, I removed the cut IR filter completely and use a 2" Baader one at the end of the scope adapter instead which allows alot more of the hydrogen alpha wavelengths through. but I haven't had much chance to try it out much, I don't even have an olympus lens to test it with, only the scope adapter. If I ever win the lottery or something I'd like to get a D800 or D800e modified for astrophotography, but since I use both my bodies for business and other 'normal' photography hobbies, I can't really dedicate one to JUST AP. or even just get a 60da or something, but it'd be nice to have something compatable with all my nikon gear I already own...

 

[Aloicious]

Sparky, is that celestron a 9.25" SCT? it seems larger than the 8" scopes I'm used to in comparison with the camera body.

11".

ah, very nice!

 

[LizardKing]

BTW... In one of the links you pasted, you say you stacked 8-9 images... may I ask what kind of stacking you did?
I'm really trying to get better pictures of the moon everytime I have a nice clear sky, so I'm always looking for tips and ideas on this matter... And the one I uploaded before is actually the result of 2 different shots... But I was just playing to try and get a better outcome jaja
Thanks in advance!

you don't need to worry about stacking with the moon, basically stacking for astro images combines the light from the exposures to get a rough equivalent of a single long exposure. for example, you could take a single exposure lasting 3 hours, but it would be VERY difficult to keep everything tight and tracked for that long on a single exposure, where you could do 36 5 minute exposures, and have a much better ability to keep everything sharp and tracked well, and then stack them together to combine the light from them all together to get roughly the same total exposure....there are some programs that are made to do the stacking, like registax, is one, as well as others, I think for those images you're talking about I just used photoshop CS4, which is okay, but since it's not made to be an astrophotography tool to start with, there are some others out there that are a bit better.

but since the moon is bright enough to capture a proper exposure in a much more normal speed, that kind of stacking isn't really needed.

Oh ok, yes, I've read a little about astrophotography. But in this case I thought maybe the stacking worked well for the perfect focus I see in your image.
I've come to the point of manually focusing to the craters with live view, just a tad before infinity... But now it seems that's softening the surface and other parts of the moon...