Moon

[kkara4]

Seeing in Brisbane was good for a few nights earlier in the week. My first attempts at some high resolution moon imagery turned out a treat! All taken with the QHY5L-II and RG610 filter through an EdgeHD 925:

In order: Plato and Mare Frigoris mosaic, individual panels of Plato and Mare Frigoris, Copernicus, Kepler, Gruithuisen all from 28/7/15.

On 29/7/15 i grabbed the Aristarchus plateau and Rimae Sirsalis.

[Atmos]

You've got some really nice shots there :-)

[johnnyt123]

Absolutely brilliant photos.

What was you image acquisition and processing method?

John

[Unigraph]

brilliant photos and very well processed, congratulation!

cs Harald
www.unigraph.de (http://www.unigraph.de)

[kkara4]

Thanks Colin, John and Harald!

John - these are with the camera and scope listed in OP, then using a Televue powermate 2x and a filter wheel which i set to the RG610 filter. Captured using firecapture at full resolution of the QHY5L-II, stacked in Autostakkert, careful wavelets in Registax and a very small levels and contrast adjustment in PS, then "save for Web" in PS to create attachments for the forum :). The mosaic i stitched manually in PS.

[Camelopardalis]

Beautiful Krishan :thumbsup: like your use of the near full phase to bring out the subtle crater details.

[blink138]

apart from all of the above, .................. great collimation!
pat

[kkara4]

Thanks Dunk and Pat! Yes Pat i spend a lot of time collimating - i spent about an hour making sure it was as good as possible, examining a star in focus with metaguide :)

[blink138]

whats this metaguide then? i am a bit scared of trying to collimate my c11 and it is well out of wack i think!
i bought the hubble 5 star a few weeks ago and set it up inside my house, i think it was a mile out and i think i got it closer
pat

[kkara4]

You shouldnt be scared Pat! Although Dunk can vouch for me being petrified at the prospect of collimation at first as well!

Basically you view a in-focus star through a 4x powermate or barlow/equivalent with a webcam/planetary/guide cam (not a DSLR) and Metaguide stacks 10 or more frames continuously to form a live video of said star, but because it is stacking it the seeing doesnt matter anywhere near as much. Then you adjust screws until the star looks like a perfect dart board.

I have a hubble. It is only useful for coarse collimation (ie making sure the secondary is roughly centered in out of focus star image to form a donut). As such it is pointless, because that is super easy to achieve anyway with any star under any conditions (except for clouds :rofl:).

[blink138]

ah ok krishan, i have a lodestar mono and my brother has an orion ssag, i looked up this metaguide site but they did not mention either of these two cams, what would you suggest? / bit disappointed about me hubble 5 star there fella ha ha!
oh and i only have a 2 times powermate
pat
oh and you do it with an in focus star? what magnitude?

[multiweb]

Nailed the focus and collimation for sure. Outstanding results. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Regulus]

Superb Krishan.

[kkara4]

Thankyou Marc and Trevor!

Pat - sorry i forgot to mention with Metaguide, i have to use EZplanetary which comes with the QHY, and live broadcast it to Metaguide, using EZplanetary to set the gain and exposure.

i havent tested my scope with a 2x powermate - with mine the airy disk is probably still big enough, but not sure about the C11. you will have to try and see!

[blink138]

thanks for persisting with me here krishan, so i have a qhy10, can i use this EZplanetary with my OSC?
pat

[FlashDrive]

They are very good... nice close ups ... best I've seen for a while. :thumbsup:

Col.

[kkara4]

Thanks Col!

no worries Pat - i think the QHY10 might work but the pixels might be a bit too big. Give it a try though for sure! Find a decently bright star (not too bright, something around Mag 0), start EZplanetary, set exposure as fast as possible for a gain that doesnt give you too much noise. exposure must be faster than about 50ms, 20 or 30ms is ideal.

swing me a PM if you want to discuss more, but really just get out there and give it a try! first step is getting the airy disk big enough so that is what you will need to get right first, before starting with Metaguide :)

[blink138]

thanks krishan you are gem! if i can get my collimation close to that i will be ecstatic!
pat