My first moon pic

[matt]

Let's hope this works ... and my first ever astropix makes their way onto IIS;)

This was taken last night around 6.45pm.

The "blue" one is the original. The other is with a very small amount of reworking in photoshop.

The seeing was poor (hazy and windy) and I'm still learning the capabilities of the camera which was used afocal.

Matt

[matt]

PS ... Definitely gotta work on that oversaturation at the limb.

The Sony Cybershot P-73 doesn't offer a lot of manual control, but there's a little amount of "play".

Cheers

[ballaratdragons]

That is excellent Matt!

But 3/4 of the Moon is missing LOL!

You must have a good camera. The surface detail is very clear.

[Mick]

Nice work Matt:)

[RB]

Matt that's excellent work.

Well done.

[Wombat_In_Space]

Nice shot better than some of my moon shots. Keep up the good work.:thumbsup:

[LT_Ng]

Very nice image. Taken with DSLR? Canon?

LT

[bird]

Hey Matt, that's a nice image.

Bird

[asimov]

That's a nice result Matt.

[davidpretorius]

good focus, what zoom can you get to???

what is the slowest shutter speed so to speak you can get out of your digicam??

[matt]

Thanks guys. Your encouragement is much appreciated.

Very funny Ken:lol: I think the moon was reluctant to reveal any more of itself after so many weeks of being shrouded, what with the weather. Very modest!

LT: Is a Sony Cybershot P-73 4.1 megapixel digicam.

david p: The cam has a very modest 3x digital zoom. I think it offers a 1/4 or 1/8 sec as its longest exposure, but I'll look into that.

Was shot afocal through 25ml super plossl ... with cam at approx 2x... so roughly 80x mag.

[matt]

Oops ...

That should read 3x optical zoom .... 10x digital

Pretty modest features, really.

I forget who, but there's someone in this forum using the P-100 ... which is the slightly bigger brother of the camera I've got.

Cheers

[matt]

How could I forget?!?!?!?

Iceman has the P100. Sorry Mike!:o

Maybe you can answer the question Mike. What's the slowest shutter speed we can achieve with those Cybershot digicams???

Cheers

[iceman]

Not sure about yours, but with mine, I can go from 1/1000th of a sec, to 30 seconds by using the manual mode.

Great shot Matt!

[matt]

Cheers Mike

I know mine can achieve 1/1000th ... so fingers crossed it's also good for the longer 30sec end of the scale.

Mike ... do you have other examples of pix you've taken using yours, with what settings you used to achieve thos pix???

Would be a handy reference.

I'm quite surprised at how well they perform, for what they are.

[matt]

Confirmed...

1/1000th to 30 sec in manual mode.

There you go

[iceman]

Here's my most recent afocal stuff..

Lunar eclipse

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=4816

oh and the venus shots from the star camp. both threads have details about exposure times.

[matt]

Very nice moon shots Mike.

Haven't worked the camera in multi burst yet. Will have a crack at it and process in registax ... for a laff:)

[33South]

Hey Matt,
Nailed the focus pretty well, theres a lot of detail in that little image.

Chris

[matt]

Thanks Chris

Let's hope that's just the beginning!

Still plenty to learn, but what fun:)

[TidaLpHasE]

:)Great shot Matt, focus is perfect and looks sharp as.

It's a lot better than my first afocal moon shots, keep em coming;)

[67champ]

Very Nice!!!

dt

[matt]

Thanks guys. Very supportive.

Bolstered by your encouragement I ventured into my Canberra backyard again last night (gotta make the most of the first truly clear sjy in about 3 weeks) and made a few adjustments here and there.

I think I've improved on my first night out? The saturation/ overexposure at the limb seems reduced.

I also had a go with the 6ml Vixen LV ... just for a bit of detail in Theophilus.

Hope you like 'em. As always, any tips/ advice recieved very warmly.

[iceman]

Great shots Matt, I love the closeup one. Here's my attempt at processing your version.

[iceman]

And a similar treatment for the other..

[matt]

Mike

That's fantastic what you've done with so few kb. Thanks so much for doing that.

Both posts were compressed versions of raw originals. I was planning on having a go at processing the original (1Mb+) shots tonight in photoshop.

You must tell me what you did do them ... and how you did it so quickly?:)

Thanks mate.

[iceman]

No probs matt, it's easy (and quick).

Using photoshop (though GIMP or other will do equally well):

1. Mode -> Greyscale
2. Layer -> Duplicate Layer
3. Filter -> Other -> High Pass
4. Set blending to "Hard Light", Opacity 30%
5. Flatten Image
6. Filter -> Sharpen -> Unsharp Mask
7. Mode -> Brightness/Contrast, Contrast +4%
8. Save as web.

That's it! I did the same to both images.

The originals were quite sharp already, so the difference isn't dramatic, but I prefer a greyscale look with a little more contrast. Though it's subjective so not everyone prefers a more processed look.

[matt]

Mike

The brownish almost-sepia tone was the result of using the Cybershot's cloudy setting in the white balance mode.

What metering mode do you use? I had the multi operating.

I also underexposed -2.0EV and had the focus set to infinity and all these setting were in Landscape mode.

[RB]

Matt they're great shots well done.

And Mike well done on the processing and info you gave.

That's why I love this place........:)

[matt]

Thanks RB

You're dead right. This forum's great. I took a month before I posted my first image.

You can be sure I spent a fair amount of that time looking and learning from what was being said and discussed through various threads on all manner of topics, especially pic taking.

It's all here mate, and in simple straight-forward Englais!.... most o' the time;)

I'll be stickin' round.:drink: