My First ToUcam pic - Aristarchus

[sheeny]

Here's my first ToUcam pic. Camera at prime focus on my C8. 10 frames per second, autoexposure, 640 x 480. I took a thousand and something images cause I started recording then wondered "how do you stop this?":P I tried all sorts of things and hunted franticly through menus before I found that right click does the trick!:lol: (Warning! Operator out of control...)

Stacked in Registax, and some unsharp mask in PS. Oh, and I'm posting the 8 bits per channel version to keep the size down. Seeing wasn't real flash -continuous movement - but I think I can improve the image when I learn how to limit the number of frames that are stacked... I'm sure this stacked the lot. I know I've read about that somewhere, but feel free to jog my memory...

BTW I had a big dark shadow near the centre of the frame which I suspect is dust on the CCD already!:sad: Fortunately there was enough drift that the shadow isn't too evident in the final image. I will have to investigate tonight...

Al.

[asimov]

Very nice first ever toUcam image!

That darn dust is almost impossible to keep off! Washed mine 5 times so far & only had it a short period.

[iceman]

Excellent shot Al! Great for a first attempt. Is that a mass dome-land in the bottom right?

And I agree with asi - I can clean my ToUcam and there'll be a big dust spot or water mark the very next time I use it. I have to use the speed control of my platform to keep the planet off the dust! With the moon it's impossible!

Al, to limit the number of frames, click on the "StackGraph" side tab on the "Stack" tab (be sure to press "Optimise" only, not "Optimise&Stack"), and drag the vertical slider down the look in the status bar at the bottom to see how many frames will be stacked as a result. I usually cut it off at 30-50%, depending on the quality of the original frames (= good/bad seeing) and how many I rejected during the "Limit" phase.

Congrats on the slippery slope ahead! :)

[sheeny]

Aaahhh! (The tinkling sound of money!) I knew I had seen/played with limiting the number of images before (but I only had a handful of images to play with). That makes sense now... :o


Al.

[sheeny]

PS Yep looks like hills to me... I'll have to research that a bit tho...


Al.

[davidpretorius]

arrrgh sheeny, great shot.

i also see you have a modded toucam and a tracking scope.


please please please, i would love to see how you go with long exposures etc.

[xelasnave]

You did good.
alex

[Hitchhiker]

Very nice!

:thumbsup:

[sheeny]

Yes, David, me too... I plan on getting there!;) In the meantime I have lots to learn...

BTW I have attached a revised image- 302 frames out of 1031. Different reference frame. A minor improvement - not as much as I expected really! All other processing the same as before.

Al.

[davidpretorius]

it is always fun trying to get the exposure just right so that the craters are not too white and then making everything else too dark???

[Robert_T]

Hi sheeny, looks pretty damn good to me:) , sharp with good detail and not too processed. I came by accident across that area with the two paired craters and the lava flow channel (at least I think its the same feature) when I first used the Neximage on the moon - see attached. Must have been using a barlow and this was one of those impatient shots taken through foliage etc so nowhere near as sharp or clear as yours.... Is one of the craters here called aristarchus?

[gaa_ian]

Yep, the bright one is Aristarchus, the crater adjecent is herodotus & the valley is Schroters valley. One of my Fav. areas on the moon.
Great shots fella's, better than I could do Afocaly the other night.
I had a bit of a thread on this one the other day
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=6133
(I'm sure there is an easier way too show a link to a thread, I just dont know how!)

[ballaratdragons]

Hey Al, you done good mate! I love taking Moon shots with the Toucam. I like to wait until there are some really nice terminator shadows on a crescent .

[sheeny]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think I'm starting to get the hang of Registax, but no doubt still a long way to... the sky's the limit as they say.;) One video sequence can yield a series of images highlighting differen features if you choose the the right reference frames (and have enough cloudy nights...)


Al.

[sheeny]

This image was captured on December 13, 2005. (My second ever attempt using a ToUcam.) Just 13 frames stacked in Registax out of 453 frames captured using K3CCDTools, autoexposure, 640x480, 10 frames per second. Camera was at prime focus of my C8. Only processing in Photoshop was to unsharp mask to image. This image shows just a hint of a central peak in Aristarchus (top centre). Also featured are, of course, are Schroters Valley, Herodotus, Montes Harbinger (top right) and Kepler (bottom centre).

Hope you don't mind me posting another similar image to my last post, but I was pretty happy not to burn out Aristarchus with this one.

Al.

[RB]

Very well done Al.

I enjoyed all these shots.
Thanks for sharing.

:thumbsup: