Aristarchus and Vallis Schroter

iceman (Mike) · #1 07-08-2006, 09:13 AM

Went out for about 45 minutes last night and captured some more luna images.

Seeing was ordinary again, so I used the 2x and 3x barlow instead of the usual hi-res 5x powermate shots.

Here's the first completed image from the session - Aristarchus and Schroter's Valley. It's an area of the moon i'd often admired in others images, but never had the chance to capture myself.

Processing was difficult due to the bright crater walls of Aristarchus and the low sun angle of the rest. I used 8 point MAP processing on this image, and layer masking on the crater wall so it didn't get overexposed when raising the levels.

Approx 300 frames were stacked on each alignment point. Used the DMK21AF04 with R+IR filter, 30fps for approx 1 minute.

Thanks for looking.

Dennis · #2 07-08-2006, 09:42 AM

Another amazing image for the conditions Mike; I see you had to use the full kit bag of techniques to squeeze everything out of this one, and you have done it so well as the final image looks very natural.

Cheers

Dennis

RB (Andrew) · #3 07-08-2006, 09:44 AM

Awesome shot Mike.
You've even captured nice detail in the surrounding plains with beautiful wisps emanating from the craters.

sheeny (Al) · #4 07-08-2006, 09:59 AM

I too was out last night and took an AVI of 2 of this. I haven't precessed it yet, but will do. Seeing was very ordinary here too!

Great result considering the conditions Mike! I notice your image seems a lot darker than I remember mine to be while capturing... is that the way you captured it or is it the result of post processing? What was your white level meter reading?

I normally aim for around 200-220, but I have in the past had problems with Aristarchus burning out.

Al.