Lunar: Theophilus 21/12/2005

[bird]

This image isn't finished yet, but I'm so excited I had to post what I have so far.

There was a stretch of really good seeing this morning at around 4.30am when I was browsing across the moon and spotted this wonderful crater (Theophilus).

It's going to take me a couple of days to fully process all the data (I took about 15,000 frames lol!) but here's a taste, this is just the first 2000 frames aligned and stacked in Registax.

Dennis imaged the same crater as well! Well done mate, great minds think alike.

10" f/6 newtonian @ f/48 via 5x powermate and extension
Lumenera LU075M camera, Red Astronomik bandpass filter
stack of 2000 frames.

regards, Bird

[RB]

Hmmmm

Not Bad. :lol:

Wow Anthony, It's stunning, can't wait to see when you're finished with it.

Can you give a quick reason why you used a red filter, is it because the red channel caries the best information?

[Dennis]

Hello, Bird

That is a superb image of Theophilus, with excellent technique in capture and processing. The image scale is awesome and detail is fantastic. Can’t wait to see your other stuff!

Cheers

Dennis

[ving]

is that the american flag in the bottom left? :P

utterly fantastic :)

[rumples riot]

Nice image Anthony. Very good stuff.

[davidpretorius]

yep good acidophilus, that crater edge is so sharp. it is like a satelite photo of earth!!


well done!

[iceman]

That's awesome Anthony. Well done! Can't wait to see your Mars and Saturn pics!

Image scale is unreal, and it's so sharp. Congrats.

[Robert_T]

coffee table astronomy book stuff Anthony! - yum!

[xrekcor]

Excellent shot! lovely detail! well done!

regards,CS

[Dennis]

Hi Anthony

Have you tried to track down the ejecta of the Apollo space vehicle impacts? I understand one of the Apollo's crashed a part of the Saturn V rocket section into the Moon, to measure the seismic effects? With the resolution you are obtaining, I would assume that a disturbed area of say, 200m to 300m would be just discernible if you knew where to look?

Cheers

Dennis

[bird]

G'day Dennis. Just between you and me, I have some Grand Plans for lunar imaging, but it might be a while yet before I can get to the required resolution...

Bird

[h0ughy]

it is can't you see the froth on the peaks in the centre, that is an awesome image :)

[Dennis]

Thanks Anthony - your "secret" is safe with me. ;)

Cheers

Dennis

[videoguy]

Anthony

That would have to be among the finest amateur lunar images I think I've ever seen especially for a close up. Unbelievably good contrast and resolution. Very well done..the seeing must have been excellent from your site!

[67champ]

That's Great, keep up the good work...

dt

[LT_Ng]

Bird,

Are you sure that is taken with a 10" telescope? I didn't believe it. The resolution is much better than my 12.5" telescope!

Good job.

LT

[beren]

Pretty damn incrediable :thumbsup:

[ballaratdragons]

WOW! Bird, that is brilliant! It is so crisp. Looks like it was taken close up, not a close-up.

[bird]

LT, I believe that most larger scopes around the 10" to 14" are not used close to their resolving limit due to thermal currents near the primary and in the tube. I've paid very close attention to the problem of cooling all parts of the scope to exactly the same temperature so - when seeing permits - I can get images that are very close to the resolving power of the mirror.

There are articles about this on my website, I think it's the most important thing that you can do to improve the image quality.

regards, Bird

[avandonk]

I just did a quick calculation and if I understand correctly the focal length was equivalent to 12,000mm and your camera is 640X480 with 7.4 micron pixels, then the field of view is 1.44X1.14 minutes of arc. That is 0.024X0.019 deg. That is very amazing! What resolution would you estimate you are getting Bird? No wonder a 0.5 deg temperature variation has an effect.

Bert

[bird]

Bert, I'll take your word for the fov calculation, I'm not sure how to calculate that - but the other details on focal length and camera are correct.

Resolution is a tricky thing to get accurate - I still feel that there is a lot more potential information present in the raw frames than the current software can extract. More so in these images because there was a lot of thermal motion going on, and it's only partly corrected for in software.

I could be optimistic and claim a couple of hundred metres per pixel, it should be something like that.

regards, Bird

[avandonk]

If the numbers are correct then the FOV is correct.

FOV in deg =57.3(width of sensor/focal length) .
One radian =57.3deg.
as long as all dimensions are the same units.

and Moon diameter 3476 km
assume 0.5 deg apparent angular size

so (0.024/0.5)X3476 = 167 km for 680 pixels

so 167/640 = 0.260 km per pixel

So each pixel is 260M
If we assume the niquist theory is correct that you have to sample at half the distance of the wanted resolution then your best theoretical resolution is about 500m. I think that is amazing.



Bert