Crescent Moon mosaic – Brisbane 5th April 2014

[Dennis]

On 5th April a Waxing Moon (32%) looked very picturesque in the North-West, some 30 degrees above the horizon so I dragged out the ‘scope and grabbed a series of 14 AVI’s as the Moon headed downwards, hoping that I had sufficient overlapping coverage to complete a mosaic.

The AVI’s were recorded between 6:50 and 7:21pm, with the Moon’s altitude decreasing from 30º to 26º. The seeing was quite good despite the lowish altitude, enough to support the native focal length of the Mewlon at 2160mm. It was a bit of a hectic rush to grab the series before the Moon sunk too low into the murky Brisbane skies.

I punched all the AVI’s through AutoStakkert2! (a fantastic program) and then assembled the mosaic in CS6. Here is a sample of what I have processed so far.

The two panel image shows Mare Crisium, Mare Fecunditatis; craters Langrenus, Messier A & B with Mare Smythii at the eastern edge of the lunar limb.

Here is the link to the full size mosaic (5302x2768) at 1.2 MB

Cheers

Dennis

[h0ughy (David)]

awesome - just awesome

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

Full frame mosaic is fantastic!

cheers

Rusty

[Dennis]

Thanks David and Russell.

For this series of images, I broke 3 of my astro-imaging rules:

• Never set up in a rush – you’re bound to get some setting(s) wrong!
• Never attempt a mosaic without a plan – you’re guaranteed to miss a section!
• Don’t image objects when below an altitude of 30 degrees, the seeing will poor – it’s not worth the wasted CPU cycles.

Fortunately, I chose to break my rules.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman (Mike)]

Nice work Dennis, lovely results.

[RickS (Rick)]

A great result, Dennis! Breaking the rules worked well this time

[John Hothersall]

I have never had the guts to do a big mosaic as cloud comes to ruin things in my world. It is a grand view you've assembled with no thin black lines like my imagined results.

John.

[John K]

That's beautiful Dennis - really 3D feel to it!

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

Those images are breathtaking Dennis, really nice! The resolution looks great.

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Looks fantastic Dennis.
The Moon will be a great target this month - Total Eclipse on the 15th and a Partial Solar on the 29th.
I hope to image the Moon every second day to get the nice waxing and waning with the eclipses at full and new.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by iceman

Nice work Dennis, lovely results.

Thanks Mike, it was nice to be out under clear skies once more.

Originally Posted by RickS

A great result, Dennis! Breaking the rules worked well this time

Thanks Rick, it’s satisfying to have a good result when you throw away the rule book!

Originally Posted by John Hothersall

I have never had the guts to do a big mosaic as cloud comes to ruin things in my world. It is a grand view you've assembled with no thin black lines like my imagined results.
John.

Thanks JohnH, the AVIs were grabbed in a 30 minute period as the Moon was sinking fast. It helped that I only had 14 to capture given the phase of the Moon, although the latter few suffered noticeably deteriorating seeing as the Moon dropped towards the horizon.

It’s a little sobering to understand that at 15 arc secs, you could fit 4 or 5 Mars globes inside the crater Langrenus…you guys are operating at incredibly long focal lengths in comparison to these images.

Originally Posted by John K

That's beautiful Dennis - really 3D feel to it!

Thanks JohnK. As mentioned above, it’s a little sobering to understand that at 15 arc secs, you could fit 4 or 5 Mars globes inside the crater Langrenus…you guys are operating at incredibly long focal lengths in comparison to these images.

Originally Posted by SkyViking

Those images are breathtaking Dennis, really nice! The resolution looks great.

Thanks Rolf, the Moon is such an easy and forgiving target, especially when allied with some good seeing.

Originally Posted by Matt Wastell

Looks fantastic Dennis.
The Moon will be a great target this month - Total Eclipse on the 15th and a Partial Solar on the 29th.
I hope to image the Moon every second day to get the nice waxing and waning with the eclipses at full and new.

Thanks Matt, the Moon is an old favourite of mine and I still enjoy cruising the terminator with a medium powered eyepiece.

Good luck with the eclipse program!

Cheers

Dennis

[N1 (Mirko)]

This is one of those images I could marvel at for hours. Only beaten by the actual view at the eyepiece.

[allan gould]

Superb image Dennis. Messier A and B just stand out so well and to think you then did Sirius A and B. a great night of imaging and the ZWO is a great camera.
Allan