Moon - Antares 77 frame time lapse image

[Dennis]

Hello,

Here is a 77 frame time lapse image of the Moon-Antares conjunction of 28th Sept 2006, from 7:54 to 8:34pm AEST (GMT+10).

Vixen 102mm f9 refractor on Manfrotto photo tripod.
Pentax *ist DS DSLR, 200ASA, 1/125 sec.
77 Images Aligned and Cropped in ImagesPlus.

Cheers
Dennis

[gbeal]

Nice shot Dennis. If you have all the individual frames why not commit them to an animation? It is what I plan on doing, although I don't have 77!!!

[iceman]

Nice work as usual, Dennis! Quite an effort there, 77 shots!

[h0ughy]

top stuff

[RB]

Excellent Dennis.
It was quite a sight.

Well done.

[Dennis]

Thank you for looking. It was a hectic shoot as the clouds didn’t clear until quite late and I then chose to set up over the fence in the council paddock as my standard observing location is not that suited for the west. With hindsight, I would have been okay in the back garden due to the altitude of the Moon. Never mind! :doh: :doh:

The Vixen 4” refractor was fitted on my Manfrotto tripod with the 410 geared head, held in place by a couple of G clamps sandwiching strips of plywood as the standard ¼ bolt just couldn’t hold the refractor and camera steady enough.:prey:

Thin bands of clouds occasionally obscured the Moon and the mirror slap from the Pentax, even with the 2.5 sec delay (there is no mirror lock) was horrendous. You can see the effects in the distortion of Antares.

This image just would not have been possible without the Align, Crop and Resize image functions in ImagesPlus to cater for the manual Alt-Az tracking I had to do. This is one amazing application. See http://www.mlunsold.com/menu.html

Cheers

Dennis

PS - I'm look forward to your animation Gary.