Moon photos

jrista

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I've been getting into lucky imaging lately for planetary and solar system stuff. Here is a recent moon photo I took, the best 5% of frames chosen out of 3000, merged with a superresolution algorithm:

ultra-high-res-waning-gibbous-moon-1.jpg

ultra-high-res-waning-gibbous-moon-2.jpg
 
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Really awesome how the first two pictures in this topic have the exact same shadow line on the moon.

I've bought a 3x extender to pair with my 150-600mm for some moon shots. Its still in the mail. I hope it gets here on a clear night so I can snap pictures of the moon. It will give me f/tiny however, so I'm not sure how it will work out.
 
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Don Haines

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procentje20 said:
Really awesome how the first two pictures in this topic have the exact same shadow line on the moon.

I've bought a 3x extender to pair with my 150-600mm for some moon shots. Its still in the mail. I hope it gets here on a clear night so I can snap pictures of the moon. It will give me f/tiny however, so I'm not sure how it will work out.

Two people taking a picture of the same thing at the same time....that could explain why they look the same :)

I would love to see the shots through your 3X extender... Please post them for us when you get some....
 
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Don Haines said:
procentje20 said:
Really awesome how the first two pictures in this topic have the exact same shadow line on the moon.

I've bought a 3x extender to pair with my 150-600mm for some moon shots. Its still in the mail. I hope it gets here on a clear night so I can snap pictures of the moon. It will give me f/tiny however, so I'm not sure how it will work out.

Two people taking a picture of the same thing at the same time....that could explain why they look the same :)

I would love to see the shots through your 3X extender... Please post them for us when you get some....

I sure will. I'm also keen to know how well a 85/1.8 3x extender combo works. Might be rubbish, might be a really cool long prime.
 
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jrista

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Don Haines said:
What software are you using?

BackyardEOS 3 for video capture with my Canon DSLRs. AutoStakkert!2 for processing, frame analysis and selection, and superresolution integration. Then I just use Photoshop for additional processing.

Screenshot of BackyardEOS' Planetary Imaging module in action:
 

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jrista

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TLau74 said:
How does the AutoStakkert!2 compare to DeepSkyStacker or StarStaX? Is the AutoStakkert!2 similar principle as the others but used for uncompressed videos only?

AS!2 is currently one of the better applications for planetary image integration. It is more similar to Registax 6 than DSS or SSX. The latter are used for stacking high res still frames. SSX is mostly for startrails stacking, DSS is a fully featured deep sky and cometary image stacker. I use DSS for my DSO imaging.

AS!2 and Registax are specifically designed to give you the best results when doing lucky imaging for planetary, lunar, and solar imaging. AS!2 seems to be preferred these days. I've used both, and also prefer AS!2...it just does it's job superbly well, it is extremely easy to use, and quite fast.

I'm using it now to stack some more moon images. These will be my highest resolution yet...7D with 1200mm f/8 lens, 720p video recorded at 10x zoom...so, about as high resolution as you can get with Canon equipment currently, without resorting to a real telescope. I'll share them soon.
 
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jrista

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Here is my closest closeup so far. It's softer than I want, but getting it this clean and sharp and detailed was actually a lot more work than I originally thought it would be. I had to use a multi-scale wavelet tool in PixInsight to pull out detail at multiple frequency levels, then I had to do further processing in Photoshop to enhance global contrast. Still trying to figure out if there is a good way of enhancing microcontrast without making it look overprocessed.

msSVfWV.jpg


Sensor FoV Specs:
Image Scale: 0.739"/px
FoV Width: 63.86' (1° 3' 51.6")
FoV Height: 42.57' (0° 42' 34.2")

The image above was recorded with the 10x live view zoom mode of Canon cameras. The FoV information listed above is for the whole sensor, and the image was produced from a small fraction of that area. I'm not sure yet how to calculate the exact FoV of the region of the image itself...looking for a tool or a formula that will help me figure that out easily and quickly.
 
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CanonOregon

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Oddly enough, I've gotten what I would call reasonable images using my wife's P&S (Canon 300HS) with an inexpensive telescope. I've got a Canon 300mm f4 L, a 2x MkIII and other gear I thought would do better, but not really. This one I was just holding the camera up to the eyepiece- I've got to rig up a better way to do it.
 

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Here are two from today, Sept 3 14.

The first is from the 5diii with 600mm > 2Xii>1.4xiii the best i got was at f16.

The second was from sl1
with 600mm > 2Xii>1.4xiii those were at f20 and whatever time was needed. A good tripod and remote release all, manual focus. though the live view focus did work on the 5diii.
Processed with adobe bridge only. Let me know what you think. Would there be any additional benefit to sharpening in photoshop?
 

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FEBS

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applecider said:
Here are two from today, Sept 3 14.

The first is from the 5diii with 600mm > 2Xii>1.4xiii the best i got was at f16.

The second was from sly with 600mm > 2Xii>1.4xiii those were at f20 and whatever time was needed. A good tripod and remote release all, manual focus. though the live view focus did work on the 5diii.
Processed with adobe bridge only. Let me know what you think. Would there be any additional benefit to sharpening in photoshop?

Very nice picture. Congratulations
I did try yesterday evening but it was to cloudy. I could not get the result I wanted.
 
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jrista

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CanonOregon said:
Great stuff, jrista! Is that the remains of a lunar lander there on the left? :)

Hah! I wish I had that kind of resolving power. At this scale, a lander probably wouldn't be much more than about 1/10th of a pixel at best. :p

Once I get a longer scope, and can do 4000-10000mm, then I might be able to BARELY resolve a lander...still, it would probably be less than a pixel in size. ;)

At the moment, I think the only camera that can actually resolve landers with anything more than a pixel or two worth of detail is the LRO, or Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:

lunar-landing-sites.png
 
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jrista

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JumboShrimp said:
Lunar eclipse from 2010. The resolution sucks, but I like the colors. Can't recall the exact equipment, but probably a Canon 5D2 with a 300/4L IS (?).

Very nice! Good color and shading. I like it.

It's tough to get better detail than that once you go into the umbra unless your tracking the moon. You lose spatial resolution at higher ISO, almost as much as you do with longer exposures at lower ISO due to motion. I did eclipse photography for a few years before I got my tracking mount, and most of my shots weren't any better than yours (many were worse! :p) With a longer lens, it gets a little better, however you have to increase our shutter speed even more (to counteract the motion of the moon...it appears faster the longer the focal length) and use an even higher ISO.

You need a mount that can track at lunar rate (vs. just sidereal) to get anything like this:

 
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