ASI120MM Moon scapes from Brisbane, 24th April 2013

[Dennis]

Hello,

I was keen to try out this camera so despite the 5/10 seeing, I banged off a few AVIs and after processing and downsizing from the native 1280x960 to 1024x768, they scrubbed up reasonably well for the conditions.

Captured in SharpCapture, processed in AutoStakkert2, Wavelets in Registax 5 with CS6 for finishing.

Cheers

Dennis

Some settings:

[ASI120MM Camera (ZWO Design)]
Frame Divisor=1
Resolution=1280x960
Frame Rate (fps)=Maximum
Colour Space / Compression=MONO8
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Exposure (s)=0.006159
Brightness=0
Gamma=1
Gain=10

[gbeal]

They're good Dennis, but not helped at all by the conditions. Good to see you enjoying the new camera.
Gary

[peter_4059]

They have turned out nicely Dennis. I recently purchased one of these cameras to try it as a guider but must give it a try for imaging some time.

[White Rabbit]

They look really great. Amazing amount of detail.

Thanks for posting.

[Matt Wastell]

Hi Dennis
I like these 'noon' Copernicus shots - shows the big splat!

[allan gould]

Dennis
You have done well to capture the small craters in Plato and the rille in the alpine valley.
Allan

[EricB]

Lovely photos Dennis. It's not easy to image successfully when the Moon is nearly full. You have done very well. You must be pleased with the ASI.

Eric

[Dennis]

Thanks guys, I appreciate all the comments and feedback.:)

My most enjoyable challenge was trying to manage the huge brightness range on the Aristarchus plateau and the only way I could manage this was to taken 2 AVI’s exposed for the darks in one and the light tones in the 2nd one and then blend the final 2 images in CS6 to show the tonal range without blocked up blacks and blown out whites.

I found SharpCap very stable and tried FireCapture but it (FC) froze on me so I bailed out and stuck with SC.

Cheers

Dennis

[EricB]

It's funny because for me it's the opposite. FireCapture is much more stable than SharpCap which either freezes or doesn't recognise my ASI120MM. :shrug:

I will have to reinstall it hope that that will fix the issue, because I really like SharpCap.

Cheers,

Eric

[Dennis]

My experience was with a Samsung Ultrabook with x2 USB3 and x1 USB2 ports and I plug the ASI120MM into the USB2 port. With SC and FC I was recording to an external La Cie USB2 HDD which was also powered by a 5VDC 1A mains adapter.

With the Sun and Moon I was able to capture at 1280x960 and around 28 to 29 fps with generally the SW reporting that between 2 and 10 frames were dropped in a 3000 frame AVI.

Cheers

Dennis

[noeyedeer]

love the 3d look! nice images indeed.

matt

[EricB]

Thanks Dennis for the info. I have a 2 year old laptop. I have had no problem with SharpCap and the DMK though.

Cheers,

Eric