A Few More Lunar Close-ups

[Dave882]

Interesting night last night under the moon - atrocious conditions early but after deciding to go inside I came back to it around 10pm had really improved nicely. After a nice visual session I switched to the camera and got a few shots off before it went bad (real bad) and then clouds came over - so I was half way packing up when it cleared and just for kicks put the binoviewers on again and WOW was so stable I added the Barlow and was comfortably viewing at close to 400x. Tiredness kicked in and didn't have it in me to do any more imaging - but here's a few that I got!

Clavius - was interested to have another crack here after my attempt a few nights back. Very interesting comparison and the conditions seem to have provided a nice boost to the detail in the crater floor and surrounds. I like the framing with a wider view...

Aristarchus Plateau - Just loved the contrast between the super smooth plateau and those impact rays - and then the canyons formed by lava flows eons ago.

Schickard-Wargantin-Phocylides-Nasmyth - Love the "X-marks the spot" marking on top of Wargantin - apparently when struck the blast perforated the crust causing lava to fill the crater to the brim!

A couple more to come as I process them...

The setup:
c14 non edge
asi178mm & IR685
AS!3 / Regi6

Thanks for looking!

[Dennis]

Excellent work, these are really nice.:)

I don't think I have ever seen such detail in the Aristarchus crater and surrounds, great work.:thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[Retrograde]

These are excellent Dave! :thumbsup:

[Averton]

These are really great images Dave, so much detail. Interested that you used an IR pass filter.

[Tinderboxsky]

Yes, fabulous images.

I particularly like the Aristarchus - Herodolus - Vallis Schroteri image. The Sun’s angle is just right to highlight the wide range of features in this area.

I was observing this area for some time last night, with my 140mm refractor. Whilst not the same level of resolution, the FOV was astonishingly sharp and rich with detail at high magnification - I lingered for quite some time observing the detail on offer.

[Saturnine]

As Tinderboxy said, great lighting angle of the Aristarchus region showing lots of detail. Also really like the Clavius, Southern Highlands image, heck they're all good.

[Dave882]

Thanks guys I appreciate the kind comments! Was nice to have good conditions to observe and image in. I generally find that there's 2-3 locations that catch my attention due to position & the right illumination - and if I have a chance I'll try to get an image of them once I've done observing. I spent quite a bit of time on Aristarchus too Steve!

P&C- I've found the IR pass filters quite useful to provide a bit more detail in unstable sky conditions.

Couple more images to come soon...

[Eris]

These are great shots David.:thumbsup:

[Stonius]

Awesome work! beautiful clarity. It reminds me of the last time I had some really nice seeing - like someone just turned yup the detail filter or something. It looks like you're capturing surface features at a resolution of about 1,000m, does that sound right?


Cheers

[Dave882]

Thanks guys much appreciated!
Marcus- Hmm now you got me thinking...I'm imaging at a pixel scale of 0.13". I guess if you find out the distance of the moon you could formulate the theoretical resolvable detail - but then there's that silly atmosphere thing we've got to look through. I'd say it should be smaller than 1000km on a good night - maybe 1 km...

[Stonius]

Got me thinking - I found this interesting thread on Cloudy Nights https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/712653-what-is-the-smallest-lunar-object-visible-visual-clearly-with-an-amateur-telescope/


It appears that around 1km is the limit for earth-based scopes, so you're images are pretty much the best possible case scenario, because I'm pretty sure some of those features are 1km or even slightly less. The Dawes limit comes into it, as does contrast, blah blah, but good on you for using that technical excellence to capture such beautiful images.

[Dave882]

Hi Markus- that’s an interesting thread. So I guess could be capturing detail of only a few hundred meters, depending on the level of contrast :eyepop: