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Small bore challenge: the Moon w/ 6" or less

Started by BKBrown , May 05 2015 10:01 PM

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1858 replies to this topic

#1651 Dave Mitsky

ISS

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Loc: PA, USA, North America, Planet Earth

Posted 18 May 2024 - 05:52 PM

(continued)

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#1652 MarkMittlesteadt

Fly Me to the Moon

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Loc: Weston, WI. USA

Posted 18 May 2024 - 09:21 PM

Taken with a C5 using my handheld Galaxy S10...

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#1653 james7ca

Hubble

Posts: 13,628
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Loc: San Diego, CA

Posted 19 May 2024 - 02:21 AM

A shot of Saturday night's gibbous moon taken from a fixed tripod using a Nikon Z8 with a 500mm Reflex-NIKKOR mirror lens and a 2X teleconverter.

This is the best 64 of 120 still images that were taken in burst mode on the Nikon Z8 as the moon drifted across the field of the camera. Image processing with Photoshop 2024, AutoStakkert! v4, and Registax. This full-disk image was reduced to 57% of the original capture scale to conform to the CN posting limits (1600x1200 pixels).

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#1654 james7ca

Hubble

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Joined: 21 May 2011
Loc: San Diego, CA

Posted 19 May 2024 - 02:26 AM

Here is a center crop from the above image at full image scale. Same capture and processing details as before.

I wouldn't call this critically sharp but I only had time for one quick capture run before the marine-layer clouds arrived. I would have liked to have done a longer sequence with a refocus but this one sequence was all I could get given the cloud cover we generally have during San Diego's "May Gray" (and soon to be followed by the "June Gloom").

As for the detail in this full-scale crop, it's not bad but I'm sure I could have done better with a refocus, recentering on the moon, and a longer sequence of frames. This image does show two of the features that I like to resolve in any full-disk shot of the moon. First, it's just possible to make out Hadley crater and rille both of which are near to the Apollo 15 landing site (in fact, the Apollo astronauts visited the rille on one of their excursions using the lunar rover). Next, many of the craterlets that are to the east (right) of Copernicus are shown (or suggested) in this image. The visibility of both of these features is affected by the phase of the moon and at this time they are more difficult to see than they would have been a few days ago.

Another feature that I think should be visible at this phase of the moon are the twin rays (ejecta) that extend out from the craters Messier and Messier B. Those craters aren't visible in this crop (out of frame), but they and the two rays are shown in the full-disk image shown above.

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Edited by james7ca, 19 May 2024 - 04:47 AM.

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#1655 AstronomyFred

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Loc: North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany

Posted 23 May 2024 - 05:10 AM

Hi everyone,

Have not posted here yet, as I tend to image the moon with a bigger aperture, but on the 21st the moon was very low and with not fantastic seeing, so I decided to image the moon, using my 80mm refractor @ 480 mm focal length.

The result is as follows:

There are many other, better examples of moon phases in this thread.

This one showed me one interesting notion: Three bright points on the moon, making a triangle of bright features at this lunation: Aristarchus, Proclus and Hell Q (or the surrounding of Hell Q).

I have also underestimated the brightness of the area surrounding Vallis Snellius, but this image makes it apparent how bright this region actually is.

Clear skies,

Fred

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#1656 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 11 June 2024 - 12:37 AM

These two hand-held afocal iPhone shots were taken on June 8th using the 5" f/5 achromatic refractor that serves as a finder scope for the Naylor Observatory's 17" f/15 classical Cassegrain. There's some residual chromatic aberration due to the refractor's optics.

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#1657 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 11 June 2024 - 12:38 AM

(continued)

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#1658 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 12 June 2024 - 03:30 PM

Here's a cropped Seestar S50 image of the waxing crescent Moon from last night.

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#1659 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 12 June 2024 - 04:04 PM

This is a Seestar 4x image, with the crater Gutenberg (the Lobster Claw) labeled. Both photos were processed somewhat in Photoshop.

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#1660 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 13 June 2024 - 02:32 PM

I took this handheld afocal photo of the waxing crescent Moon last night using my iPhone, a 25mm Orion Plössl, and a 6" Orion SkyQuest Dob.

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#1661 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 13 June 2024 - 02:38 PM

This shot was done using an 8-24mm Tele Vue Click Stop Zoom eyepiece.

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#1662 Dave Mitsky

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Posted 13 June 2024 - 04:22 PM

Here's a labeled version of the previous photo.

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#1663 Dennis_Oz

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Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Loc: Brisbane, Australia

Posted 13 June 2024 - 04:47 PM

Here we have the Moon as imaged from Brisbane using the Canon RF 200-800mm f/6.3-9 IS USM lens with Extender RF x2 on my EOS R7 tracking the Moon on my Tak EM200 Temma II mount.

I stopped down from the wide-open aperture at F18, down to F22 at ISO400, 1/30 sec.

I took 200 frames via EOS Utility.

Using Autostakkert4! I selected the best 100 frames from the series of 200 and then followed this by deconvolution in Wavesharp before finishing in PS CC.

Dennis.

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#1664 MarkMittlesteadt

Fly Me to the Moon

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Posted 14 June 2024 - 09:38 AM

C5 smartphone pic...

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#1665 Dave Mitsky

ISS

Posts: 122,752
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Loc: PA, USA, North America, Planet Earth

Posted 15 June 2024 - 06:21 PM

The Lunar X was just beginning to form when I took this afocal iPhone photo using my 6" Celestron NexStar Evolution SCT and a 24mm Explore Scientific 68-degree eyepiece. The seeing was poor and the waxing Moon was low in the sky at that time.

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#1666 Dave Mitsky

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Posts: 122,752
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Loc: PA, USA, North America, Planet Earth

Posted 16 June 2024 - 02:40 PM

The 67.8%-illuminated Moon was partially obscured by clouds last night, but I was able to get a couple of mediocre hand-held afocal photos of Rupes Recta using my 6" Orion SkyQuest XT6 Dob and iPhone.