Full Moon - in saturated colour. Back on the bike baby!

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi guys

My first astrophoto in a looong time! Like riding a bike? Not quite.. everything was slower - setting up, preparing, focus, settings, processing..

And this was just with the DSLR and the ED80 kit. I put the 12" on later and even forgot how many counterweights I needed!

These photos were taken on Monday night 19th April, early in the evening so the full Moon was still quite low in the sky, and the seeing was pretty ordinary.

I used my ED80 with 40D and 2x barlow (plus extension tubes to get it to focus). Unfortunately the Moon was bigger than the CMOS sensor, so I had to do a mosaic to get the whole moon.

I took about 58 frames each of the bottom section and top section, stacked them separately in Registax, joined them in AutoPano Pro and processed with Wavelets in Registax and then in Photoshop for saturation and contrast.

I used LiveView on the 40D to focus and also used EOS Utility to capture the images straight to the laptop. It's the first time I've used LiveView in that way, it works well!

The coloured image shows the various types of iron and mineral deposits on the Moon.

Enough blah..

Large images:
- Full Moon in Saturated Colour
- Full Moon

I'm pretty pleased with it for my first image in a looong time.

Thanks for looking, feedback welcome.

[h0ughy (David)]

nice one

[bartman (Bart)]

That is cool!.....I was just looking at the moon tonight....graveyard shift.... and thinking I should try a 'saturated colour' shot, as it was clear as ... clear....
Nice Mike!
Bartman

[Lester]

Very nice images Mike. The colour looks okay, and the detail in the other image stands out more. If you could get the detail to come out a tad more in the colour image IMO that would be great.

All the best.

[iceman (Mike)]

Originally Posted by Lester

Very nice images Mike. The colour looks okay, and the detail in the other image stands out more. If you could get the detail to come out a tad more in the colour image IMO that would be great.

All the best.

Thanks Lester - it must be a perception thing, because the images are exactly the same - the second one is just mostly de-saturated from the first.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Good to see you back imaging Mike,

Nice data, have never had a go at this saturated colour technique with the Moon, it certainly is a different look and most impressive.

Hope you don't mind but I had a very minor play with you image, just a little curves tweek. Obviously the colour is such a subjective thing.

Regards
Trevor

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks Trevor - the increased contrast looks nice on that. I might go back for a re-do.

[bartman (Bart)]

Hella repro Trevor,
Noice!!!!

I'm looking forward to your re-do Mike
Bartman

[Frewi808 (Freddy)]

Nice colorfull luna Mike !
Freddy

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Pretty images Mike - something useful to do with a full moon. Regards Ray

[John Hothersall]

Colour is usually over done but this is just sweet, after a break its amazing how much you have to remember even for simple images but it all comes back in the end.

John.

[iceman (Mike)]

Here's a Trev re-pro.

Pretty much as he said - just used curves to add some contrast.

For completeness, here's my blog post with the images, but has everything I've already said here.

Thanks for the comments guys.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Always like a coloured Moon. Nice and sharp too. Difficult to achieve.

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Great image Mike, there is nothing like a saturated Moon!

[FranckiM06]

Very nice image Mike. Also, you have some great details in there and I like so much the colour image.
Franck

[Troy]

Nice images Mike. In the colour version you can see heaps of detail well done.
"Full Moon - in saturated colour. Back on the bike baby!"
I like your heading mike nice

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Super - great to see you back on the bike!