Here is a (downsized) mosaic of the SW Quadrant of the Moon from 5th July 2009. I’ve also uploaded three frames from the evening showing various regions captured at the prime focus of the Mewlon 180mm F12 (2160mm fl) using a DMK31AF04.AS ccd camera. Although I recorded 1250 frames for each tile of the mosaic, the final stack for the tiles varied between 176 and 350 frames processed in Registax 5.
Images acquired at the prime focus using an exposure of 1/150 sec at 30fps, Gain 400, Gamma 10.
Great work Dennis. The Mewlon/DMK combo sure does produce a beautiful detailed moon image. Are you planning to complete the mosaic?
Hi Peter
Thanks for your nice words.
One day (night?) I will complete a lunar mosaic using this combo, when the Brisbane weather fines up again! I don’t have the skills, expertise and stamina of Jase so I’ll have to shoot all the tiles in one session, to avoid any problems in variations of lighting/tones/shadows etc. when stitching the tiles together.
The DMK31 with its 1024x768 chip certainly makes this a more pleasant challenge to look forward to. At the prime focus there is so much signal coming through that I can afford to keep the Gain low, use a short exposure and maintain 30fps whilst keeping the histogram well to the right, so the data is more forgiving to work with.
I would certainly encourage others to have a go – you absolutely don’t need Tak optics as I suspect that at this image scale, at prime focus and with a fast shutter speed, most optics should be able to get excellent results. I just like the M180 as it is a grab and go ‘scope – so lightweight and compact that it’s a breeze to set up.
Lovely work Dennis,
Excellent detail in Copernicus, these are very sharp images and processed beautifully, definitely not over processed. Love the mosaic, top stuff.
Thanks for sharing.
Regards
Trevor
Hi Trevor
Thanks for your encouraging words – they are very helpful to me in reviewing my processing work flow.
The Multiple Alignment Points in Registax 5 were really crucial in extracting as much quality as I could from the data although I really struggled with the optimum sharpening settings for these images.
For the individual tiles, I was able to push the Wavelets 1 setting to 75 (0-100) with the field left of it set at the default value of 0.1. I saved this file as a “sharp” copy.
I then dropped the value in the field down to 0.09 and it softened the stacked image slightly and I saved this as a “soft” copy.
In CS3, I then layered the “soft” copy at 33% over the “sharp” copy and it appeared to take the hard edge off the sharpening.
Excellent work Dennis.
You didn't mention the boots.
Thanks Chris – the Moon played in the starring role for this session, whilst the boots were relegated to a supporting role, a job they executed flawlessly none the less!
One day (night?) I will complete a lunar mosaic using this combo, when the Brisbane weather fines up again! I don’t have the skills, expertise and stamina of Jase so I’ll have to shoot all the tiles in one session, to avoid any problems in variations of lighting/tones/shadows etc. when stitching the tiles together.
You forgot to mention the difference in image scale as the Moon distance varies in its orbit.
Excellent imaging Dennis... I need to acquire some time and stamina as well.
You forgot to mention the difference in image scale as the Moon distance varies in its orbit.
Excellent imaging Dennis... I need to acquire some time and stamina as well.
Cheers
Tony
Hi Tony
Thanks!
The varying distance is certainly inconvenient but for me the real killer would be Lunar Libration which makes it all but impossible to assemble a mosaic recorded over different Lunations!
Please say a big, warm hello to everyone at home and I hope the bedlam is slowly reducing, although the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics probably won’t allow for this!
The 3rd Law of Thermogoddamits is constant, entropy always increases, at least until the kids leave home.
Lovely moonage Dennis.
Copernicus is awesome.
Sorry to go off topic for a bit, but I've heard the 3 laws of Thermodynamics summarised so:
1. You can't win
2. You can't break even
3. You can't leave the game
There is just so much detail there Dennis, fabulous!
Thanks for also posting the tips for how you captured these, it certainly inspires me (and also makes me go D'OH as to why I have been having trouble in the past during moon shots).
Here is a (downsized) mosaic of the SW Quadrant of the Moon from 5th July 2009. I’ve also uploaded three frames from the evening showing various regions captured at the prime focus of the Mewlon 180mm F12 (2160mm fl) using a DMK31AF04.AS ccd camera. Although I recorded 1250 frames for each tile of the mosaic, the final stack for the tiles varied between 176 and 350 frames processed in Registax 5.
Images acquired at the prime focus using an exposure of 1/150 sec at 30fps, Gain 400, Gamma 10.
Stunning detail there mate, that DMK looks like its the go, help me out a little if you can,
I have been using my Malincam video with my 12 inch LX2000r for deep sky and here it works great, but does not so good for moon or planets as this video system was designed more for deep sky so I am after different camera for these targets so would you recommend the DMK31 for ease of use and how does the raw images that stream in look like because at the moment I like viewing in real time as I slowly get into capturing images to learn to process them. I am familiar with the Imaging source IC capture software as I use one of there video converters with the Mallincam, and are these cameras colour or mono?
Sorry to highjack your thread but thought I would jump in to get your opinion.
I’ve never seen a Malincam or similar video device in operation, so I cannot compare the two. With the DMK cameras, using IC Capture, you can see the real time video stream just like watching a DVD or movie on TV whilst the data is being written to the HDD, with the proviso that the PC has enough grunt!
The DMK21 at 640x480 can run at 60fps on my 6 year old IBM ThinkPad R40 which has a Centrino 1.4Ghz processor, 512MB memory and an 80GB HDD, although I record to an external USB2 320GB HDD.
The on-screen images from the DMK31 at 1024x768 stutter along, only showing every n’th frame. I suspect this is caused by the limited resources on my aging ThinkPad. However, it does record the full video stream without any problems; it’s just that the display stutters under the load. The DMK31 is just fabulous for its larger chip size although its maximum frame rate is 30fps compared to the 60fps for the DMK21.
The DMK series are B&W and you need an IR blocking filter to reject the IR end of the spectrum.
The DBK series are colour and they too require an IR blocking filter.
The DFK series are colour but they are fitted with a built in IR blocking filter and these are not recommended as the filter isn’t optimal for astrophotography.
With the DMK’s you record the data and then process the AVI’s through Registax which is at release 5 now – a fantastic Aligning, Grading, Stacking and Finishing application that is the de facto standard for web cam imagers.
These cameras look really good, I will do some more thinking and research before I buy one.
I like the idea of the mono for more sensitivity. I might now have to start leaning RGB imaging of the planets/moon.
When I stream the Mallincam feed into the IS video converter so I can display the video images on my laptop and not just my CRT monitor or LCD TV I usually set the converter to record every 30th frame so I don't fill my hard drive up but this doesn't really matter for the Mallincam as its refreshing a new image every 56 seconds on max but with planets and the DMK I suppose you want to record as many as you can to filter out the rubbish ones caused by astmospheric disturbances I assume, but at the moment I am only just starting to learn to captue images as I was mainly just visual observer.
These cameras look good value for money and I will probally get one to have a play with.
Thanks Chris – the Moon played in the starring role for this session, whilst the boots were relegated to a supporting role, a job they executed flawlessly none the less!
