Hi-res Moon, Venus, Jupiter & Galilean moons

[Dennis]

Hello,

We had a day trip planned for Bribie Island with my wife’s family, so I managed to throw the Tak mount, camera and a few lenses in the boot whilst no one was looking!

At the appointed hour, I suggested we drive to Banksia Beach where I was hoping for a wide view over the Glass House Mountains. The team agreed but to my consternation, the Sun was setting some 23 degrees S of the Glass House Mountains (we were last there in March at the Equinox!) and I had forgotten a ball and socket head to attach the camera to the mount for wide field shots. Just fitting the camera on the mount gave me badly tilted horizons, far, far worse than H0ughy’s! LOL!

Oh well, Plan B was executed which was a series of 400mm shots to be later combined in a mosaic. After fighting off the ferocious mosquitoes, I managed to salvage a few shots having polar aligned the Tak mount using a compass and home made altitude protractor. This was sufficient to allow me to shoot for 10 seconds at 400mm without any trailing.

There are 3 panes to the mosaic and I used Layers in Photoshop to enhance the back ground star field without blowing out the Moon, Venus & Jupiter.

Cheers

Dennis

PS – 1280 and 1600 Pixel versions attached

[h0ughy]

lovely images Dennis!!!!

[Liz]

Another WOW :eyepop: they are fabulous, so clear and a multitude of detail!!

[Dennis]

Thanks Guys!

Here is a full size crop of the Moon showing also the full size versions of Venus and Jupiter copied and pasted from the original.

Cheers

Dennis

[rogerg]

I love that beeded edge you have to the moon Dennis :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Wow absolutely beautiful Dennis. A lovely shot and very sharp!

[RB]

Stunning, absolutely stunning Dennis !

[firstlight]

Necessity the mother of invention. Great shots as usual Dennis.

[matt]

Great work, Dennis.

[StephenM]

Looks great Dennis!

[Omaroo]

Excellent work Dennis. :thumbsup:

[gaa_ian]

Great Image Dennis
I had a quick look before the Mozzies got to me too !

[Dennis]

Thanks for the nice comments everyone, they helped restore my confidence after a series of quite comical errors from hasty planning!

Here’s a list of what I forgot::doh:

Ball & Socket head for camera wide fields so that I could orient the camera correctly.
Bubble level for levelling the tripod so I could index it with my polar aligned position at home. Fortunately, Mitre 10 at Bribie Island had a small unit in stock – phew!
Wooden pads for the tripod feet to prevent it sinking into the sand.

Other lessons learned::whistle:

Don’t spring last minute surprises when on a family outing. It might work the 1st time around, but it is far better to negotiate any modifications to the itinerary up front!
Remove the UV block filter from the lens to minimise ghosting (thanks Paul!).
Use your planetarium program to predict the horizon position of future events. Allow for the movement of Sun/Moon rise/set positions along the horizon between the Solstices and Equinoxes.
Wear an all over body net to thwart the blood thirsty ravages of Bribie mosquitoes and sand flies.
Update the polar alignment xls spreadsheet on my PDA to assist with indexing the polar alignment reticule once darkness has set in.
Have a running sheet which lists the type of shots you want and the equipment used for each configuration. It is much easier thinking of this in the peace and quiet of one’s study rather than on a strange beach, in the dark whilst being sucked dry by the local savages.

So, as you can see, a bit of luck was required to get the shot, not to mention the blood transfusion needed the next morning to replace what the thirsty critters drank.

Oh, and one final lesson – when all your planning and efforts fail, just enjoy the beautiful, visual spectacle!:thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[gmbfilter]

Love the shots, and the advise!

[AlexN]

Stunning as always Dennis!

I like it - A lot!

[Dennis]

Thanks Geoff and Alex – despite the various trials and tribulations, I was very pleased to get this result! I only wish that Ponders had mentioned the ghosting from front fit filters the day before the event! LOL!

Cheers

Dennis

[strongmanmike]

Super work Dennis, bringing up the star field has worked very well.

Mike

[Dennis]

Thanks Mike.:)

Yes – I was very surprised to pull up so many stars (10 secs, F5.6, ISO100) given the Moon’s propensity to wash things out! I guess it also illustrates how much “dimmer” even the over-exposed crescent Moon is compared to a 1st Qtr or Full Moon.

I used Levels and Curves to pull up the stars followed by Noel Carboni’s “Less Crunchy, More Fuzzy” action to soften them.

I then copied this modified image as a Layer into the original and simply used the Eraser Tool in CS3 to erase the over exposed Moon, Venus & Jupiter to let the original unprocessed Layer “peek” through the holes of the Layer with the more prominent star field.

Pretty amazing stuff, this Photoshop magic! It also helps to have the image quality of the Canon 400mm F5.6 contributing to the final result.:whistle:

Cheers

Dennis

[Matty P]

Excellent image Dennis. It has come out very nice indeed.

Well done. :)

[Screwdriverone]

Oh My!

Thats fantastic, an absolutely top effort!

Presentation is geometrically framed to really give it something extra.

Astounding.

Chris

[Dennis]

Thanks Matt & Chris:)

This particular event has opened my eyes to a new field of astro photography I hadn’t previously considered, a quasi-minimalist approach. Namely a (relatively) mobile set up with minimum equipment; no need for mains power, telescope, guide scope, computer, auto guiding, etc.

Cheers

Dennis

[spacezebra]

Excellent Dennis

I knew that you would do something special - well done.

Cheers Petra

[Dodge]

Oh wow I love how it also has other stars in the background. I have set it as my desktop wallpaper :)

[Dennis]

Thank you Petra and Neat.:)

Since that evening (1st Dec), we’ve had nothing but cloudy nights and rain showers, not to mention the occasional thunderstorm; truly the astronomy gods were in a good mood that night!:lol:

Cheers

Dennis

[Octane]

Dennis,

Truly wonderful work.

Congrats! :)

Regards,
Humayun

[prokyon]

Hi Dennis,

wow, a great pic!

[Dennis]

Thank you Humayun and Werner, I only wish I could have seen the Moon occult Venus as seen from parts of Europe!:)

Cheers

Dennis

[Jen]

:eyepop: now thats a really cool pic cheers :thumbsup: