Another moon shot

I had a few minutes the other night to try another moon shot. As I had only a short while, I used the camera tripod with the scope on it. Again using the 450d and 2xTC to capture the image.

It's not quite as crisp as the other night, but it was much lower down, and not having the fine control and tracking of the motors on the NexStar made focusing all the harder.



And then, because I can really, I pulled up the colour



I was eager to get out and try a little experiment with my new adapter. This allows me to mount the 450d directly on the top of a Hyperion eyepiece. I managed a very quick test and through the viewfinder the view looked good, but there was too much cloud around moving to quickly last night to attempt a picture, as I couldn't spend the time to get focus.

Basic Widefield Astrophotography

I wrote up a tutorial on doing these earlier...

Ok I thought I'd write this up, as it's been discussed several times. So, here's a quick guide for getting started with Astro Photography. The full blown deep sky imaging requires a lot of expensive and heavy equipment to do properly, unless you're like me and make do with cheaper stuff and push it as hard as it'll take, and sometimes beyond, of course :D.

All you need for this is a Camera and a Tripod. I've done these with my Z2 and the 450d. The Z2 sensor is really too small and the ISO handling not good enough, but it works nonetheless.

You want to use a wideish lens. I typically use the 18mm end of the 450d kit. Set the lens aperture to wide open, forget about the sweet spot, you are looking to gather as much light as possible, if you want to get as many stars as possible in the end picture. Set the ISO to the highest you can, that the camera will be able to control the noise reasomably on, for the consumer Canon this appears to be ideal at 800. Set the Shutter to 30 seconds, this appears to give the ideal exposure time at 18mm, before star trailing becomes noticeable (it'll be there, but it's likely to be so small, you won't see it). Make sure you are set to shoot in RAW, then take at least 10 exposures at these settings, as the number of individual shots increases, the more detail you get, but... the more the resulting image will be affected by field rotation (appears as smearing in the top right and lower left corners). I'd recommend using mirror lockup and a remote or the camera self timer (I've used both).

Once you have captured the image frames (Lights), you need to then capture some Dark frames. These are exactly the same exposure settings, so 30 seconds at ISO800 in the same temperature conditions (don't take the camera in) but with the lens cap on. Go for 5. These are used in the stacking process to remove sensor noise and hot pixels. This is the equivalent of having in camera long exposure noise reduction turned on but allows you to spend more time capturing light frames, as the exposure time for each frame doubles if you turn it on in camera.

Load all the images, lights and darks into Deep Sky Stacker using the appropriate option when you load them in. These are called subs (or sub frames). Then click Register, taking the defaults and allow DSS to stack after registration. There are a lot of options in here, and it takes quite a bit of time to work them all out, but the defaults will get you going. Once the stack is finished, DSS will load the resulting file and it'll look possibly quite odd. This is DSS carrying out it's own algorithms to stretch the data and pull out the detail. This does work, but requires some playing around and experimenting, and to be honest, is not the easiest thing to do. So for now, save the image, and select the embed adjustments but don't apply option.

Load up the TIF in your editing package, and prefer for some fun... This is where things get tricky. You need to now use curves (or levels for those who don't have a curves tool, there's a filter for Elements Widows that provides curves) to stretch the histogram. You're looking to change it from an almost vertical bar on the left hand side to a broad shape.

This is the sort of thing you are looking to do (I'm not very experienced at this bit as yet, and it takes me a lot of messing to get to a result I'm happy with, I'm sure there are people here who'd be able to make a far better job of this step in much shorter time)...

But basically you are looking to apply curves something like these. Not necessarily in this order or severity, maybe stronger curves would work better, it depends on what details are in your image, but it gives the general idea.









When you have finished this, you should get a reasonable resulting image. Here's a couple I did in exactly this way in August (the moon was down, and the skies were pretty dark).







I hope this is helpful to someone.

A bit more lunar fun

What a strange day for the weather. The clouds came and went all day. I was able to grab a handheld shot, I thought I'd have a bash at something a little different, and tried to reverse the Earthrise shot, a bit daft... but hey



I had to pop out, and saw a wonderful Lunar corona in the clouds, but didn't have my camera or tripod with me to try and capture it. Anyway, the sky cleared away after that, and had a look at a couple of constellations with the eldest. Orion, Taurus and Gemini (he'd been asking me about them). So after getting home, I popped the C80ED on the tripod, grabbed the camera and TC and dashed out, to find the sky covered in clouds, can't have been more than 10 minutes later.

Time Passes ...

About an hour after that, I poked my head out and again the sky was clear. So I popped the C80ED on the tripod and tried again. This time capturing the moon at 1200mm (F15)



I had planned to setup the scope and try and sort out using the webcam for lunar capturing, but this was not to be, as by the time all was quiet, the fog had rolled in. The effect of the moon through the fog was quite astonishing, but the camera couldn't capture it, I've tried a few things, but no joy so far.

So instead, I had a play with my earlier image, popping the colour



Then cropping in to see what that would look like





I have to say that for crops from a single SLR image, they are better than my attempts at using the webcam to date...

First view of Venus

I forgot to mention in my earlier post, I got my first view of Venus through the scope last night too. Not much to write home about, but that's not really a big surprise. Still I could clearly see the phase. I had a bash at it with the x10 lashup I was going to use on the moon anyway...

Getting silly with the Moon

Got a little while after work out under the stars (well the bright moon really) last night. I continued my play test with silly magnifications just to see what would happen with single exposures from the 450d. However, I grabbed a couple of 55-250 shots to start with just to get something in the can.

One from during the day



And one from after dark



Then I started cranking in the barlows..

This was shot with the 5x barlow and the 2xTC, focus was tough, but I got it a bit better than before.


As I was mucking around, I threw in the 2x Tal barlow as well.. Focus was nigh on impossible, breathing within 5m of the scope or mount made the view wobble about like a jelly on a trampoline.. But I got an image for my troubles, ok it's not very good.


Then having satisfied my curiosity and decided that getting that config to work was just to much like overly hard work, I settled back to just the 2xTC


Then popped the colour


Then, being done with the camera, I assembled for a short visual session, to show a relative the moon at about 200x. The view was amazing, if a little wobbly, and he couldn't believe how much detail there was to see. By this point, in spite of wearing three fleeces a coat boots, hat etc (having been out for all of 30 minutes), my toes felt like they were ready to drop off, so I packed up. After dinner, rather than go back out again, it had got colder. I headed for the pub but on the brisk walk there, pointed out a few of the constellations and sights to my friends.

The Moon and an outing

I went out last night to a visit to the Adur Astro Society. I got out before hand and grabbed a shot of the moon with the 55-250



Then attended the meeting. A very interesting meeting, with a review of good and interesting visual and photographic targets for the month. There's a couple of good clusters coming up, positioned nicely for me to image and I shall have a go at these when I can. I then had a chance to show a few of my images and the SatCatcher which went down well. There was some astonishment at how effective something so simple and crude could be, and I think there will be a few more made soon.

When I got home, I was tempted to get the scope out and try and setup the silly experiment from the Lunar X, pushing the mag to silly levels with the 450d, but it was too damn cold and I couldn't be doing with it. So I settled for a normal shot with the 55-250 instead.

Lunar X

A challenge was set on AC, that given the Satellite images were showing clear of cloud here, that I see if I couldn't capture the Lunar X (Also known as the Purbach X). I grabbed all my gear, as this was the first time I'd actually had an opportunity to see this odd surface detail as it's only visible as an X for about 1 hour a month, and to date it's always been cloudy.

I went out to check, and yep, very clear and crisp, and I saw a fast moving satellite shoot across the sky, heading west to east. It wasn't bright enough, and appeared to have been too fast for the ISS, besides there are no visible passes predicted. Checking HA, it appears to have been Lacrosse 3.

I went in and grabbed the gear. Levelled, aligned on the moon, dropped in the 5mm Hyperion, and the Lunar X leapt off the surface. I couldn't believe how easy it was to spot, I'd been expecting to spend a while hunting for it. I'd been planning a session with the SPC900, but didn't really have time, so just put the 450d at prime and had a play.

At 600mm, no sign of the X



However, adding in the 2xTC, and the X becomes clear or at least findable



I then figured, what the hell, I needed to get closer to make this work, so I put Tal 2x barlow inline, after struggling with focus, I popped the diagonal back in, although I'm never too keen on doing this, something about the precarious perch of the SLR on top of the diagonal, but the X shows up really rather well.



I then threw caution to the wind, and decided to just go for it, replacing the Tal x2 with the Antares x5 barlow. This was a bit tricky to focus and I didn't quite nail it, the tiniest motions, from breathing near the focus knobs for instance, are amplified to a silly degree, but in spite of that it worked, the X is clear even if the focus isn't spot on.



Given that these are all single frame exposures, and there has been no stacking, I'm really rather pleased with the results. I think to improve the last one, I'd need to replace the Celestron rack and pinion, single speed with a double speed Crayford and a motor focuser. This may happen in time.

I had wanted to get back out there later this evening and have a go at M42. However, it's damn cold, my back hurts, and Orion was too high and south by the time I could have got out, what with some high level clouds appearing to be moving in, I decided to give it a miss and have a beer instead.

Lunchtime Lunar Experiment

The sky was clear at lunchtime again today, so I decided to make the most of the oppo of seeing the moon and try a little experiment. I used my new Redsnapper tripod to mount first the scopes in turn and took a series of shots to show the different scale at various focal lengths using the 450d. Including the 55-250, this ranged from 250mm to 1200mm.



Using the Konus Vista


The C80ED


The Vista again


And finally back to the C80ED


The only variation on the scopes was the fitting of a 2xTC to increase the focal length. I had been hoping to check and see how the TC really compared for IQ, but there wasn't enough contrast to work it out.

New Year Moon

I had a couple of breaks in the clouds, one at lunchtime, and one after dark. I managed to capture the moon on both occasions, by putting the C80ED on my new Redsnapper tripod with the 450d on a 2xTC at prime focus.

The one at lunchtime was really tricky, there was so little contrast between the moon and the sky that I could only just see the moon in the viewfinder, therefore ensuring focus was tough.



This one was taken about 2000 this evening, in another break in the clouds.



I'm coming to the conclusion, that either I'm not hitting focus quite right, or the TC is causing detirioration of the image quality too much. I need to do some experiments on this.

Drive Train Errors

Last night, was ideal conditions, clear, not too cold, still air. So I setup for a run at M42 with the C80ED. Leveled, powered up and aligned on Betelguese. I used liveview to align and focus. Slewed to M42 and waited for M42 to clear the roof. Then the problems started.

Every single frame was showing mount drive errors. I tried to adjust the scope in the rings, to shift the balance, errors. I powered down and realigned, errors. No matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of the drive errors. I spent some 1.5 hours faffing with it, trying to eliminate the errors. Even setting the camera to 15 seconds didn't work. So, with the cold working it's way between my toes and up my spine, I quit whilst I was behind, packed up and went to warm up.

A quick balance check during the day, today, and I shifted the balance, so that the scope with camera was a little tail heavy. The sky looking clear, I figured it was worth setting up for a bash. Of course, it's window tonight, and the clouds are scudding by. However, I still setup and aligned. Although I didn't bother with trying to align on M42. I just used Betelguese to sort out the drive errors. Even with the shifted balance, I was still seeing tracking errors, but this time, using a lantern I was able to see clearly and make better adjustments. By shifting the OTA backwards in the rings about 1" I was able to take shots up to 60 seconds, that didn't shot drive errors. Totally unusable, thanks to the clouds, and I was getting some star trails, that I think was caused by the gusty wind. After 30 minutes and a fair few test frames I'm confident that this has resolved the drive errors, so a productive night anyway, and I'm pleased with the results.

The moon from this morning

Nothing much been happening again because of the clouds. It's almost enough to put you off completely. But not that much, the view are too amazing..

Anyway I managed to get the stacks completed after some difficulties with the puter.

M42


M44


Ok as images, they aren't great, too much noise, not enough subs, the M44 image is badly frames. However, that wasn't the intention of the night. The plan had been to get the scope balanced and check out the tracking and operation of the NexStar with the C80ED on it. As you can see it worked well. Also, the scope appears to have a lovely sharp field. The stars look good into the corners.

I'm looking forward to getting a decent number of subs at some point soon on both these targets, and sorting the framing.

This morning, the sky was clear as a bell, and the moon was floating there gracefully. There wasn't enough time for a proper session, so I set the scope on the tripod, put the camera with 2xTC at prime, and grabbed a shot.



This is working really well, and when I've been able to use it, the scope is great.

Activities on the 17th Dec

I finally managed to process the single RAW frame I shot of the moon this morning. I'm pleased with how it came out. I'm not sure, but I think the single RAW is as good as the stacked jpg's. I need to work out how to stack the RAW's

Here's the image



Early this evening, I looked out and could barely see Venus through the mist. Forget any stars. I was expecting that to be that for any astronomical activities, but I was wrong. The mist cleared away, and the sky filled with diamonds. I wasn't sure how long this was going to last, I could see more clouds on the horizon, so I popped the C80ED onto the Manfrotto PortaPod and headed out the front to get a look at M42 before the clouds rolled in.

I didn't start there though, and went highed to get a look at M45. I used the 17mm Hyperion, and I think the FOV was a little too tight, but I wasn't going to leave anything setup out the front whilst I went to get the 24mm Hyperion. Anyway, I had a good long look at the lovely sisters. What a view, clear and sharp pinpoints of light against the dark velvet sky.

I then swung down for a look at M42. Using the 17mm Hyperion I could make out the large shape of the bird of M42. Looking closely I could easily make out 3 of the trap stars with clear seperation between them and I starred for a while.

Then taking a look around I could see that the sky was clear, so I took the scope and portapod through to the backgarden and had a look around. I couldn't get a clear view with this tripod on the Double or the other targets in Perseus or Cassie, as it was too high. I decided that I would grab the NexStar setup and try some imaging. This was really more of a test session as I'd not tried this setup out on a deep sky target.

So, I leveled, powered up, carried out a one star align on Betelguese, and slewed to M42. Whilst I was waiting for the slew to complete I took some flats and flat darks. Then set about getting my lights. I shot a few test frames, and each one had drive errors evident. Hmm, I guessed that the balance on the C80ED in the tube rings wasn't quite right and adjusted it slightly, to provide a slight readward bias. This did the trick. I set the timer remote for 30 seconds and started grabbing data. Mid way through a bunch of clouds wandered through, so that lot were thrown away... As M42 clears my house it's already got a bit to far south for tracking in AltAz to go very long and I lost a few more subs to trailing. I ended up with 6 x 30 second subs. I then set for 2 seconds to try and grab a few subs with the trap. This worked nicely. Whilst I was capturing these a bunch of clouds settled in over Orion... Ah well.

Whilst the scope and camera were busy I used the 10x50's for a look around. The usual suspects, the Double Cluster, M45 and a general wander around the Milky Way. I noticed that Cancer was up and looking through the 10x50's I could clearly see The Beehive. So I sent the NexStar slewing off and grabbed my dark frames, which allowed time for the mount to settle.

Once the darks were complete, I set the timer remote to grab a bunch of frames on M44. I grabbed 30 in total, and lost half to clouds, which settled in and I gave up.


I've done a teeny amount of processing on a single 30s sub to see what it looked like. I can't believe the amount of Neb that has come through in a single frame. I don't know what the bar is, but I noticed it on several 30s subs moving across the frames, so maybe a real slow satellite... Anyway.. Here's the single frame.


I did something similar on M44, although I don't think I've framed it as well. That's ok though as this was a test session anyway. Here's a single frame with a similar amount of processing done.


The stack and post processing needs to be completed however on both sets, this will take some time, and I'll post the results as soon as they are available.

This mornings Moon

For the first time in what feels like weeks, but in reality is less than one, it's enough to drive you nuts, I woke up this morning and the sky was clear and I could see the moon. Well, I swapped the C80ED onto my PortaPod, popped the 450d at prime with the OM mount 2x Teleconverter and headed into the garden. I grabbed a shot in RAW, that I've yet to process, and 10 jpg's to try and stack. Had a bit of a wild time with the stacking tools. Registax was unable to cope with the images being all of the shop (I had to keep moving the tripod head to keep the moon in frame), avistack did the same thing. CombineZ and DSS handled it perfectly. I tried 2 mechanisms in CombineZ and after a couple of tweaks in GIMP to boost contrast and sharpen I got.

Normal CombineZ


Pyramid Contrast Enhanced (I've no idea what this means, but it sounded good)


DSS (this had to be darkened down a bit)


I'm not sure which has worked the best, but it was interesting to see the results. I have yet to process the RAW image.

C80ED, second light.

Despite the cloud that kept drifting through early evening, threatening to spoil the night completely. At about 9pm, it was thin enough, and the moon bright enough, I decided to set up and have a look see anyway. After the usual, level, and power up, I aligned on the moon, this time taking more care to be as precise as could be, not easy with a 5mm ortho, on getting the centre aligned. Then I popped in the 5mm Hyperion with twin tuning rings (making 2.5mm) and started having a look around. With the cloud, the conditions weren't good enough for that much power (x240), so I removed the 14mm tuning ring making it a 3.5mm ep (x172) and used that instead. Firstly, as I slewed across the surface, I was again astonished by the amount of texture that the view provided. The fully lit main section of the moon was showing in an almost 3d way, with the rays from Tycho looking almost like deep troughs across the surface. I drifted across the terminator and pondered the mountains whose peaks were just showing in the light, an eerie and amazing sight. Then started looking properly with the "New Atlas of the Moon" out.

I started at Aristarchus, it's amazing how bright this crater is compared to the surrounding area. Then found Prinz. I'd forgotten about the oddities of direction induced using a refractor and diagonal, and using the map for a reflector and kept moving in the wrong direction. Ah well, that soon passed. Then I found Reiner and Reiner gamma and onto Cavalerius. This of course led neatly into Hevelius and Grimaldi. I recall when I first found Grimaldi, how much difficulty I had making it out with the Vista, no problems at all last night with the ED80. Clear and sharp. Gassendi was clear and easy to find and I found Sirsalis too. Then, to be honest, I got fed up with keep taking my eye away from the ep to check in the atlas and make notes, there'll be plenty of time for that, and just meandered my way around, in amongst the craters, seas, mountains and oceans admiring the crispness of the view.

I then grabbed the 450d, bolted on the OM adapter and OM 2xTC and nose piece and shot a few of the moon at 1200mm. It was a little tricky getting the settings right as the thin cloud was causing changing light, but I got it.



After finishing I had a go at a colouring of the moon, to pull out the natural surface colours



I then set the camera to take 10 shots on it's self timer and took a bunch of them in jpg to attempt to stack. I haven't had a chance to do this as yet, but I'll post the results as soon as I have.

I then decide to do a little more analytical testing to find out what this scope was really like on the stars. I slewed to Betelguese, just showing over the roof, keeping the 5mm Hyperion (at 3.5mm) and popped the star inside and outside of focus. The rings looked spot on both sides of focus, and the colour of Betelguese was really vivid with the crisp and sharp view.

I tried to get a look at a couple of clusters, but the clouds and the moon were having none of it, but the views through the 17 and 24 mm Hyperions were equally as impressive. However, Castor and Pollux were visible so I decided to test the scope on Castor, as it's a double star, and using the 5mm+tr, I could clearly make out the secondary and a most definite gap between them, both stars being pinpoints of light.

I then slewed around to have a look at M42, but this was not to be, I'd been spotted again by the cloud pixies and within moments of pointing the scope in the right direction, was clouded out.

I used the 6x30 finder scope, and whilst it will take a little getting used to, and is slightly harder to use than an RDF, it's very clear views, and erect image optics make it a useful tool.