Moon Shots

[bluescope]

First clear night for quite a while so I spent a few hours imaging various objects but mainly the moon. I wanted to do some closeup stuff with my Vixen LV20mm + SW 2x Barlow with Meade Variable Projection adapter. Here are some of the results.

Images were shot with 350D - 1/6th sec @ ISO100 - Skywatcher 200mm F5 Newtonian - EQ6 Pro

:thumbsup:

p.s. There are some little black spots on a couple of these images ( particularly Kepler and Copernicus ), I think I may have some mould on my 20mm eyepiece, I spotted most of them in PS but will clean eyepiece next time.

[iceman]

Great images! Very well done.

[jjjnettie]

Beautiful shots.
Have you thought of doing a mosaic of the moon?

[RB]

Nice shots Steve.

:thumbsup:

[bluescope]

I don't particluarly like mosaic images, I can always see the joins etc. I'd much rather just do prime focus views of the moon with my Baader MPCC. I've posted a couple of them before, you may have seen them.
Glad you like these images !

:thumbsup:

[bluescope]

Cheers Mike and Andrew, glad you like them.

:thumbsup:

p.s. My IIS beanie kept my head nice and warm that night, it was cold and very damp out in the back yard.

:hi:

[Omaroo]

Excellent shots Steve :) Great resolution.

If you have access to Photoshop CS or newer, try "PhotoMerge" to get mosaics with absolutely no seams. Even if adjoining tiles are slightly different in their tonal quality, it does a fantastic job in evening them up - automagically.

Well done on these though!!

Cheers
Chris

[Ric]

Great images Steve, very nicely resolved.

Cheers

[Moonman]

Great Moon Shots,

Never tire of seeing them!

[bluescope]

Thanks guys !

:thumbsup:

[StarLane]

Very nice effort.
Shooting the moon is not as easy as people may think.
You`ve done a great job.

Do you think the black dots maybe dust particles on the camera CCD?
I get that problem all the time with my Fuji S3pro, looks the same as your black dots. After cleaning all is fine.
Cheers.

[bloodhound31]

Fantastic shots Steve! One day I hope to be that good. It seems to me a lot of the good shots are coming from the smaller scopes.

Baz.:D

[bluescope]

I did some day time shots the other day and nothing seemed to be on those images but always worth checking from time to time.
Cheers.

:thumbsup:

Thanks Baz, I don't think you need big scopes for the moon really. I've got some good images with my 10" F4.7 Newt and some nice shots even with my 90mm Mak as well but I like my 8" F5. For one thing it's usually easier to get to the eyepiece and camera viewfinder for focusing etc with the 8" on EQ6. The mak has it's own gotto mount.

:thumbsup:

[StarLane]

Bluescope, re: moon black spots

Take a wide angle shot of the daytime blue sky with your camera at or around F22 (over expose it slightly) and then check out the result. You will notice it more at wide angle and small F stop eg. F22, (this will give you a large depth of field, meaning sharp focus depth from foreground to background). This is how I check my camera.
If you are shooting regular daytime subjects at a long or mid-range focal length or even wide angle and at F2.8 to even F8 or so, you will not notice any dust specks, most people don`t. Shooting everday shots with your camera, you will not notice it. The larger the depth of field, the more you will notice this. The smaller the depth of field, the least you will notice it.
Shooting the moon through a telescope provides a reasonably large DOF.

Performing the above test, if there is dust on the sensor there will be small almost sharp black dots on the sky as seen in your moon shots.

I have problems with this all the time. Whenever you take off a lens and attach another lens or T-ring or whatever, there is always a chance that minute dust particles in the air can get into your camera and onto the CCD.
I notice it more on wide angle shots with sky (daytime) and especially on moon shots. This is the only drawback with digital SLR`s.
I use mine every day as it is my job. I need to clean my CCD at least once a month, or more if I change lenses often in dusty locations. Sometimes you can`t see the dust in the air.
I am 100 percent certain that your 20mm is free of fungus or mould or dust, it`s just sensor dust which is easily cleaned.
Have you ever cleaned it?
I hope this helps to minimise your photoshop time cloning out these black dots.

Cheers, Paul.

[StarLane]

When my CCD is dirty, I notice the spots more on different parts of the moon. The brighter more recent craters with large amounts of ejecture, it is easily seen. On the darker parts, not so easy to see the black spot. And it also depends on your exposure.

Cheers, Paul.

[bluescope]

Thanks again Paul, I too am a photographer, panoramic landscapes are my favourite in terrestrial photography. Hasselblad XPan film camera with 45 and 30mm lenses.

www.stevehanson.com.au (http://www.stevehanson.com.au)

An Olympus E series DSLR with it's ultrasonic dust removal could be the go for astro. I own an E20P but couldn't adapt it for astro work unfortunately ( too heavy and fixed lens ) so bought the Canon, lightweight for telescope mounting and great resolution.

:thumbsup:

[StarLane]

G`day Steve,

I love the Xpan. Do you have the Xpan 1 or 2?

I see you have the 30mm. Not a cheap lens. How does it perform in panoramic mode? Do you need to use an ND centre spot filter all the time with this lens to achieve a uniform exposure across the frame?

Cheers, Paul.

[ballaratdragons]

Steve, very nice images!

I used 'Autostitch' on my 9 panel Moon Mosaic and I can't see any joins :thumbsup:

[bluescope]

XPan 1 .... 30mm is a beautiful lens .... centre filter is always on .... however I think we should stick to the thread Paul ..... cheers.

:thumbsup:

[bluescope]

Thanks .... I still don't like stitching .... just personal preference.
Cheers

:thumbsup: