Straddling the midnight hour of 23rd/24th April 2008, from Brisbane, the Moon slowly glided between the heavenly attractions of M4, NGC6144 and the brilliant star Antares. Due to the immense brightness range of these celestial objects, it was impossible to capture their splendour in a single photo. However, I was able to show what this thrilling cosmic spectacle might have looked like, by producing a photo mosaic from 4 panes covering the stellar background from the previous week, and a photo of the Moon taken just after 1:49am on the 24th April. The size of the original stellar background mosaic is 6048x4923 pixels.
Background star field details:
Vixen ED102S F9 refractor with Canon 40D DSLR camera at prime focus.
The 3 panes spanning M4 to NGC6144 were made up of 10 exposures of 30 secs at 800 ASA.
The Antares pane was 5 exposures of 30 secs at 800 ASA due to being interrupted by twilight, the result of a late start one morning!
Background photos captured over the period 17th to 21st April. Aligned and stacked in ImagesPlus. Processed and stitched together in CS3.
Moon details:
Takahashi Mewlon 180 at F9.6 using x0.8 Flattener/Reducer with Canon 40D DSLR camera.
A composite of 2 photos, exposure of 1/50 sec, 100 ASA on 24th April 2008.
Photos stitched together and processed in Photoshop CS3 with a colour saturation boost to reveal the subtle colours on the Moon. This processed Moon was then positioned against the stellar background using The Sky 6 Professional set for the 24th April 2008 at 1:50am AEST (GMT+10hrs).
So, if your eyes had a sufficiently large dynamic range, this is what you might have observed, if the clouds had cooperated that is! Yawn, off to bed now for some zzzzzds.
NOTE: 1st file is 1600 pixel at 177Kb 2nd file is 1280 pixel at 144 Kb
Beautiful image Dennis, better send that one in to AS&T. You should submit that for the David Malin awards. Entries close at 5:00 pm on Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Thanks for the nice comments everyone, it certainly was a bit of a marathon effort and at times I almost hit the wall! I ended up missing one bit of the background mosaic as the panes overlapped in a staircase layout rather than a strip, as I didn’t pay attention to the coordinates of the centre of each pane. When I cropped the background Über mosaic, one tiny corner was ahem, missing!
Fortunately, I was able to grab a few exposures on the night and add the segment in, although it had a tough gradient with the Moon so close.
I’m pleased that the weather cleared up in Brisbane for the event, although I did have a Plan B which was to include an almost similar Moon captured on 26th January 2008.
Thanks! Here is a crop from a single frame showing the closest approach as viewed from Brisbane. Exposure of 1/50 sec at 100 ASA at prime focus of Mewlon 180 F12 with Canon 40D.
I think that the 2 critical success factors in producing this piece of work, in terms of applying technology to the task, were;
The use of Remote Live View on the Canon 40D to help frame and focus the Moon on the notebook computer, and…
Photoshop CS3 for post capture processing.
Without these powerful technical aids, I’m not sure if I would have been foolhardy enough to attempt the mosaic!
I attempted this previously without these aids and the difference is that the Canon 40D and CS3 worked for me, whereas previously (Sept 2006), I ending up working (slaving!) for the DSLR and processing software.
Ive never looked through this part of the forums but i,m sure glad i picked this image to view 1st well done......must look here more often...cheers kev