More iPhone shots last night

[Startrek (Martin)]

Still waiting on my new HEQ5 and 150mm F6 to arrive in 2 weeks

In the meantime using my 10” dob with iPhone 8 to gets some Astro shots

Moon shot - using 6mm Delos mag 208x
Moon shot - using 10mm Delos mag 125x
Moon shot - using 17.5mm Delos mag 72x
Sirius shots - using 10mm Delos mag 125x

Seeing conditions average at 30 deg , average to good at 70 deg to zenith

[xelasnave]

Great effort there Martin.
I am disappointed I missed the Moon last night but when I looked there was cloud.
You do realise that when the new gear arrives the clouds arrive the very same day.
Good luck.
Alex

[PKay (Peter)]

Good effort Martin.
Love the detail on the shadow side.

Lets hope for clear skies tomorrow.
It all starts at 9.51 PM (penumbral eclipse begins)
11.51 (total eclipse begins)
12.30 (maximum eclipse)
End at 3.08AM

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Impressive effort Martin ! , your scope looks to be very well collimated , keep up the good work and IO hope you get a few of tonights luna eclipse . I would love to see them as your phone captures the moon very well .
I would stick with the 17.5 Delos at 73x as it frames the moon well .

Brian.

[xelasnave]

I am going to try a disk over the 8 inch with four 66.666666mm holes to let light to the mirror so I can get f15 ....Its ok I dont know what I am doing.
Good luch to all.
My plan is to capture if there is a hole in the clouds even if one has to make it into an artist sort of shot with half the moon behind a cloud.
Alex

[xelasnave]

Just thinking.
Imagine your scope has a holder for the phone your ap control the mount thecphone takes the photos a correct focus etc processes the images and sends the result to you printer.
Alex

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thank you all for the kind comments

I’m only a novice ( 10 months into the hobby) but I do spend time doing all the little things right to the best of my ability -
1/ Clean eye pieces
2/ fine tuning collimating my scope
3/ taking repeated shots with iPhone to try and capture the best images
4/ steady hand ( I don’t use an iPhone holder as the eye relief and exit pupil on the Delos requires subtle hand movements to capture the image
5/ Utilise filters
5/ Lastly, a lot of patience and persistence

Clear skies tomorrow night to all !!!

[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

Hi Martin,

These are some of the best iphone shots I've seen. Great captures. I saw that you said you are a novice.

The captures are very good but processing could be improved. I hope you don't take offence but I have reprocessed one of your images to show you what is possible.

I have fixed the shifting colour casts across the disk, increase the contrast, done some digital sharpening. Finally I reapplied a slight blue tinge to to the image.

Keep up the great work.

Joe

[xelasnave]

Joe your effort makes me wonder just how far you could take the approach.
Deep sky would it be possible.
Short exposures stacking proceesing...better or easier than film.
Alex

[OzEclipse (Joe Cali)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Joe your effort makes me wonder just how far you could take the approach.
Deep sky would it be possible.
Short exposures stacking proceesing...better or easier than film.
Alex

Hi Alex,

I suspect noise would be the limitation. Martins images had a high signal to noise ratio. All I was doing was fixing contrast, colour balancing and some subtle sharpening. You'll need a better camera for deep sky. The cooled ASI1600 works on this principle.

A few DLSR's are quite good at high speed acquisition. These include the Sony A7s, Nikon 810, Pentax K1. None of these will beat acquiring a series of proper length high SNR subs.

Joe

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Thats a nice moon shot ! keep it up .

Brian.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Hi Joe,

My moon shots are purely raw images from the iphone

I'm not into astrophotography as yet so I don't have the astro equipment or the processing equipment to do processing, colour enhancement, contrasting etc... I will get into this area a little down the track ( probably in a year or 2 )

I enjoy visual astronomy at the moment and just toying around with the iphone to see what a can shots I can jag on clear nights

Thanks for tweeking my moon shot it gave it a lot of contrast and definition especially the blue tinge

I printed off the other moon shot ( Mag 125x ) on quality A4 photo paper and framed it.

Its hanging next to my photo of the Apollo 8 "earth rise" shot which I purchased from the US a number of years ago

Quite frankly my moon shot in its raw image looks unbelievable on the wall next to "earth rise" the colours and textures are almost identical ( "earth rise" was shot by Bill Anders in Apollo 8 at an orbit of 60 miles above the moon and my shot was taken 240,000 miles from the surface )

Thanks again Joe and everyone else for the kind replies

Martin