58% Moon - First Lunar Light for TMB/Lomo refractor.
This is a pretty extreme crop out of the full sized image.. With a short focal length of only 480mm, the moon appears fairly small in a DSLR image!
Taken with:
TMB/LOMO 80mm F/6 triplet on HEQ5 Pro
Nikon D200.
Single frame, ISO200, 1/250th.
Had a quick fiddle in PS CS4 Camera RAW.. tweaked exposure, vibrance and a bit of a saturation boost... Cropped it and posted it..
I am VERY pleased once again with the optics in this scope, even with brightness cranked right up and saturation boosted heaps there was not even a hint of blue/violet fringing on the moon.. Yes, this is to be expected from a TMB APO.. However for me, this is a new experience and I found it worth mentioning!
Yes, sometimes the 480mm focal length is a little wide for my liking I would have been very happy to have a TV 4x 2" powermate for this shot.. From what i've seen with the optics of this scope so far, it would handle the magnification... Might have to give it a go sometime..
Carl - I would have much preferred to have no moon and to be capturing more data to add to my 2hr image of M16.. However, Make do with what you have I suppose.. If the moon is up, may as well take a few happy snaps!
Matt.. I might just do that... I was intending to do it 7 months ago with a different scope, however this scope will likely do it better anyway... I might wait untill next month though, and do one shot every 3 nights for a month then wack them all into one image, or better yet, an animation!!
Thanks Rob, I am really anal about my focus and will take a good 10 test fires and zoom them right up on the LCD to verify good focus normally.. However with this scope, even through the view finder I could tell when it was spot on... contrast really popped when it was focused correctly..
It was kind of funny.. from the time I decided to set the scopes up to snap a shot of the moon, to the time I was finished tearing down was under an hour... I intend to get the scopes back outside at perhaps 1am, set up again and once the moon is gone start collecting data for my big project
It was kind of funny.. from the time I decided to set the scopes up to snap a shot of the moon, to the time I was finished tearing down was under an hour... I intend to get the scopes back outside at perhaps 1am, set up again and once the moon is gone start collecting data for my big project
Lunar and Solar imaging is the ultimate in "grab and go" photography.
I'll be out there with you Alex. My mount's all set up and ready. I'm back on the refractor for now too.
Don't know what I'm going to go for though, or with what camera.
Any suggestions??
I was considering either M42 or B33/IC434 JJJ.. Maybe even Eta Carine or the Tarantula... A great array of targets starting to come into the sky this time of year.... If my northern view was better I'd be going for M31 or M33 for sure!
From where I've set up, I only get a short window for M31, M33. They transit between clumps of bamboo.
M42 sounds tempting.
But for the lazy astronomer, me, I might settle for some wide fields of Orion. I'm keen to try for Barnards Loop.
Best of luck to you JJJ! I'd love to have a crack at barnards loop myself.. However I'm planning a big project over the coming months.. I think my best bet is to start capturing data as soon as possible.
