Lunar Eclipse Animation

[multiweb]

Here's a quick animation of the 26th of May lunar eclipse. 863 frames every 20s. Shot with a SONY NEX-5 at prime on an FSQ106N tracking lunar rate on a G11. Levels in LR Timelapse and Lightroom then registered in PixInsight and put together in After Effect CS6. The seeing was pretty abysmal so it does jitter a little at the end.

https://vimeo.com/559347017

https://vimeo.com/559347017

[ChrisD]

Really nice. :thumbsup:

[mswhin63]

I can't seem to load the video, do you have an external link?

[PKay]

Love it Marc!

You are very creative :thumbsup:

I can only see the still, can't load the video.

[peter_4059]

Really well done Marc. You've got the frame to frame transition looking very smooth. Great to see the whole event in perspective.

[multiweb]

Thanks mate. :thumbsup: Took a bit of stuffing around. Now the rest should be quicker. :)


Thanks. ah... that's no good. Here's the direct link: https://vimeo.com/559347017



https://vimeo.com/559347017



Thanks Chris. :thumbsup:

[Tulloch]

Really impressive, love the video. I also like how the stars come out at totality, excellent work :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Seems you had an issue with the still though, don't you hate it when something else gets in the shot and ruins the image? :rofl:

[Retrograde]

Great stuff Marc!
How did you account for the changing light levels through totality? Did you just adjust the exposures as you went?

[multiweb]

Thanks Andrew. :thumbsup: Yeah it wasn't my idea. :lol: Got to blame peter_4059 for that one. :)



Thanks Pete. :thumbsup: I had an interval of 20s in between each shot to to occasionally refocus, recenter and change exposures and ISO. I started at ISO 400, 800 and 1600 during totality then ramped it down again on the other side. It's quite easy to check the shot in live view and look at the illumination. Then you change the exposure settings gradually then ISO. I'd say 80% of the eclipse I was watching TV inside and checked sky safari. I was out only for the period near totality as I needed to change exposure settings every 3 subs and also push until I saw some stars. That one was harder than the last because it didn't go very far into the shadow so the limb was still very bright.

I'm working on another widefield video (https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=191698) showing the moon motion over the star field as well as the motion of the earth shadow. It is very dynamic and another perspective that really shows why the totality was so short and a near miss.

[RB]

This is just fantastic Marc !!!
I love it and like Andrew (Tulloch) said, I like how the stars show up during totality.

Can't wait to see your widefield video.

and of course, I love your SETI work during totality.
ET finally managed to get Telstra reception!!!

[JA]

Excellent stuff Marc and well done on handling the change in illumination on the fly:thumbsup:

Best
JA

[multiweb]

:lol: Thanks mate. :thumbsup: Hopefully this arvo.




Thanks a lot. :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

Awesome results

[Dennis]

A stunning record of the eclipse Marc, top marks for planning, capture, processing, presentation and dedication to the task.:)

I missed the pre-totality phase due to trees and clouds, so was very pleased to catch it on your video.:thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[multiweb]

Thanks mate. :thumbsup:


Thanks Dennis. :thumbsup: Last one I caught it half way in as well. This one I managed to record it from the beginning although it was already half way into the penumbra. The first two frames you can see a black straight shadow moving very fast towards 8 o'clock. That's my house gutter. I started seeing the moon from only 30 degrees up onwards.

[N1]

Watch, rewatch, repeat. Very well done mate

[multiweb]

Thanks Mirko. :thumbsup:

[rustigsmed]

wow great work Marc absolutely fantastic - did you use the process you mentioned in my post? I had a go and didn't have that much luck with the registration (probably due to the high amount of drift i had or my lack of PI skills).


Cheers


Russ

[Stonius]

Really nicely done, especially with the exposure compensation, very smooth.


I'm looking forward to seeing this new video too!


Markus

[multiweb]

Thanks Russ. :thumbsup:

PixInsight will load ARW raw files from my SONY camera but I used 16bit TIFF files for registration because the associated XMP files data with RAWs don't load in PI so you need to apply the levels and contrast then save to TIFF before registration.

The script is called FFT Registration under utilities. There is another process called Blink under ImageInspection that is very handy to view the subs that are not aligned properly. So it is an iterative process. Out of 863 subs I had 27 I had to align by hand and a handful to tweak. But it does a good job and that's the only program I know where you can batch so it is RAM efficient.

And finally you use the BatchFormatConversion script under BatchProcessing to output all your *.xisf subs to 16bit TIFFs.

Most of the work is in stabilizing the footage because after that it's all pretty straight forward (once you've figured it out)




Thanks Markus :thumbsup: It's there (https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=191698).