Moon from 19/4/08

[Inmykombi]

I took this just after midnight on the night of the Friday the 18th .
I adjusted the brightness and contrast a little and did a little more processing in a basic photo program.
I am happy witht this result from the afocal method.
I just love the Moon, its has held a fascination with me since I was a kid.

Its my clearest shot to date.
I took about 20 photos and picked the best one to process and keep.

[dannat]

did you take it with the lx200, what camera did you use, I think it has come up really well, you don't see much crater/surface detail usually when moon is about full
well done daniel:thumbsup:

[AlexN]

nice shot! I see what you mean about afocal imaging!

Persist I Shall!

Alex

[Dennis]

Hi Geoff

The almost full Moon is a difficult target with many lighting and tonal challenges which you have managed very well. It looks a little flat or tonally compressed on my LCD display. I think you could stretch the data a little more so the “bars” or tones in the histogram run from almost black to almost white, rather than be “clumped” in the middle of the range like a tall hill.

It is an excellent photo of the Moon and very nicely focused, especially for afocal, well done.


Cheers

Dennis

[Inmykombi]

Hi evryone, thanks for the comments.

I enjoy the Moon very much.

I took the photo through my Lx200 with a 40 mm eyepiece and the Afocal method.
The camera was a Canon IXUS 70 with the ISO set at 100 if I remember coprrectly.
Hand held and no camera attachment used.

I have been experimenting with this method and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

I can do better I know, I just need some more time to experiment.

Cheers.

[Inmykombi]

Hi Dennis,

Sorry if I sound a little uneducated on the terms you have used to describe my photo, I dont know what they mean.

Tonally copmpressed, bars and histograms????

What do they mean.


Thx.

Geoffro

[Dennis]

Hi Geoff

Don't worry - Rome wasn't built in a day and it seems I have jumped in over your head - my apologies.

The histogram of an image is a graphical representation of the tones between black and white, where black=0 and white=255.

If you imagine a cross section through a gently rising range of hills, where you start out at sea level on the left, climb slowly to the top of the range in the middle and then descend to sea level again on the right, then the area underneath the cross section is a “picture” of the tones in the photo, from black through grey through white.

So, if you have a big mountain on the left hand side and not much too the right, you have a lot of shadows or dark tones in the image, such as the night sky - there is a lot of black in most images of stars and galaxies.

If you have a big mountain on the right hand side of the histogram, then you have a lot of white tones in the image, such as the very bright areas of the Moon.

Ideally, most of the mountain range peaks should lie in the middle region, meaning that most of the data covers the mid tones, which produces a nice smooth image, from black through grey to white.

Here is a screen print from one of my photos of the Moon and if you look in the top right hand corner, I have labelled the histogram. It would be worthwhile googling histogram and trying to get to grips with understanding it, as it will undoubtedly become your best friend in image processing. Don’t be overwhelmed by these concepts, they will certainly come to mean more over time as you continue to take photos and inspect the histogram.

Hope that helps.

Cheers

Dennis

EDIT:
I’ve also attached a copy of your photo showing the histogram. If you compare the two histograms, you will see that yours is “compressed”; that is, the tones are huddled together in the middle whereas the other one has them spread more evenly across the whole range, although it doesn’t quite go all the way to white.

[shane shaw]

heh Dennis what program are you using to process the moon pics mate.

thanks

[Dennis]

Hi Shane

I splashed out last year and purchased Adobe Photoshop CS3 after having used Corel PhotoPaint for several years. They both do pretty much the same thing, but there are more tutorials and how to’s for Photoshop, so I took the plunge and changed.

I first purchased Corel PhotoPaint 7 from Woolworth’s for $19.95 and for inspecting the histogram and adjusting curves, it worked fine. CS3 is so rich in functions and capability that it would take me a lifetime to explore 1/10 of them!

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Good write up on histograms (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml)here.

[Inmykombi]

Here are some changes to the original.
Thanks for the comments about histograms.

I obviously have a lot to learn about Astro-photography.
But aint it fun:D

Cheers

[AlexN]

Geoff - nice results!

This forum really is a wealth of knowledge.

[Inmykombi]

Thanks.

Yes, I totally agree. The Forum is a great place to learn more about different aspects of our much loved interest.

Geoffro.