Quote:
Originally Posted by N1
Nice one Joe. Beautiful coronal detail. Would have liked to come back to Svalbard for this, but the cost was so prohibitive that flying seemed a no-brainer  , even if that meant a less-than perfect platform for taking photos.
Is there a reason why the lunar disk is darker than the sky outside the corona? |
First, note that in my earlier reply, I indicated that the decision to go to Svalbard was qualified as a "no-brainer
for me." I wasn't taking a swipe at those who like watching from aircraft or ships. Just that this was something that both my observing partner and I both really wanted to do.
It's darker because it's an artifact of the stacking process. The inner corona, prominences and lunar surface in that composite is the 1/4000s exposure hence the moon is black. I did this composite fairly quickly and while sitting between 2 people on the plane flights back from Europe last 2 days. With more time, I might add in the longest exposures on top of the stack to reveal the Earthshine. But this can be very fiddly and time consuming and can involve a lot of fine brushwork on the mask so I'll decide on this later and when I have my graphics tablet available. Have other images to work on first.
cheers
Joe