Moon imaging - seeking advice

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Yesterday's moon - some refocus and sharpening. Plenty of reading beforehand and understand the issues with moon photography.

Second is the raw image.

Image is sharp as a tack in the view finder using AF - no improvement using manual. Live view is as sharp as can be expected.

Using an umodded dslr, the choice of filters seems limited.

I don't seem to be able to improve on this at the moment. Tried lots of f/ratio shutter combinations over several nights - where am I going wrong

200mm L lens with 2x extender - f/11, iso 100, 1/100th sec.

[asimov (John)]

They look ok to me. I did some moon work last night actually, & I used settings very similar to yours. I don't use an extender though, so my max is 250mm. My settings: F13 ISO 100 100th sec. No filters.

One of the secrets to successful moon imaging with a DSLR is to fire off at least 4 or 5 in reasonably quick succession & stack them. After that it comes back to basic processing knowledge: Levels/curves/contrast/etc etc.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Thanks for the advice John. I made the mistake of looking at H's moon shot in the other forum - stunning - it was taken with a Tak.

Pushed the processing on this one a tad too much I think. Usually, I like to do as little as possible.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Not too bad at all.
The full moon can be a hard one to get right.
Through the ed80 I shoot at 750th of a sec at iso 100.
Think about taking around 40-50 shots and stacking them in Registax. Apply some curves and USM in photoshop for the finishing touches.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Thanks JJ. I have 30 images but as luck would have it the software I have doesn't wan't to stack moon images. I've posted perhaps the best shot of the night separately. You might say - seeing is believing.

[asimov (John)]

Unless you've got the camera piggy backed on a scope mounted on an EQ mount, you wouldn't get away with stacking anymore than 5 or 6.

Try Registax for stacking.

http://www.astronomie.be/Registax/download.html

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

I need to submit a bug report on the software. There is no reason why it shouldn't work with this set of images. Registax is nice but they don't make it for Linux.

[dannat (Daniel)]

rchesh -someitmes i add a few moon shots by the following in gimp/PS

1. Open the sharpest image you have.
2. Copy the 2nd sharpest you have and paste it over the first one as a new layer and then apply 50-60% opacity and align it (the little eye on left side of the layer bar)
3. Copy the 3rd sharpest and paste it on the first one. Apply 25-30% opacity and align.
4. Repeat for the other raws, always by diving the opacity in half...upto 5-6 shots

someitmes it works somtimes it doesn't

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Thanks Daniel. I'll give that a go. I find GIMP solves a lot of little issues.