My latest Moon

[tbab]

Hi All,

Here is my latest efforts at the moon. Can amy one tell me how i can improve the sharpness of my images, or what you think are the main problems when taking photos through a telescope. i.e. the effect of light polution, quality of optics, etc...

Also can the quality of an image be improved by stacking several together, and is there are good software for us mac users?

Any comments are welcome.

Tom
www.photoboxgallery.com/thomasbaboolal

[Bokmakierie]

Tom, I assume that you took this image through the eyepiece of your scope. ( afocally that is).
I think the image is as good as you can get. The fact that the moon is almost full makes it difficult to get enough contrast and to show the craters well. But you have done exceptionally well!!
All I did was to remove high frequency noise with a Freeware program called Noiseware. Very easy to use. You will be surprised at the quality of images you will get during first or last quarter. Look at my Afocal Website to see what the possibilities are. http://home.telkomsa.net/mybirding/Afocal.htm

Phil

[Bokmakierie]

If you look at Plato, Copernicus and Tycho in the South, they indicate that this is a very good image.

Phil

[andyschlei]

Tom,

Here is my latest efforts at the moon. Can amy one tell me how i can improve the sharpness of my images, or what you think are the main problems when taking photos through a telescope. i.e. the effect of light polution, quality of optics, etc...

This is an excellent Moon shot. The detail is good, the contrast is balanced, and the focus is generally good. Sharpness depends on focus, seeing, and guiding. Focus just means getting it right, with seeing you get better results with stacked images, and guiding depends on the quality of your mount and the length of exposures.

You can also tweak the image in software like Photoshop or PixInsight. I have attached a fairly extremely stretched version of your Moon shot that I processed in PixInsight using curves and the HDRWavelet Transform. I think yours is a better image, but this shows how software tweaking can bring out different details.

Light pollution is a problem for deep sky astrophotography, not for planetary and lunar imaging. The planets and the Moon are sufficiently bright that they overcome the light pollution. I live in Los Angeles and do deep sky imaging, and get OK results (IMHO) even with light pollution (check out my web site).

Good optics are critical. The better the scope, the better the image. The quality of the mount -- its stability, ability to track accurately, etc., is also very important. A good scope on a poor mount will produce poor astrophotos.

I would recommend you check out Ron Wodaski's web site and his book, the new CCD Astronomy, it provides an excellent introduction to astrophotography.

Also can the quality of an image be improved by stacking several together, and is there are good software for us mac users?

Mike Salway of IceInSpace has a great article planetary imaging using a web camera to capture a sequence of images and stacking them to produce amazing results. The primary software for this is Registax, which will run under WINE in Linux, but I don't know about the Mac.

HTH and clear skies,

--Andy

[tbab]

If you look at Plato, Copernicus and Tycho in the South, they indicate that this is a very good image.

Phil

Thanks for your input Phil. I think your right about the brightness/contrast problem, i wonder if it would be better to take the shots at a much faster shutter speed and then stack the images to improve the signle to noise. I'll give that ago.

You've got some nice sharp pics on you web site. Good work

Tom

[tbab]

Tom,



This is an excellent Moon shot. The detail is good, the contrast is balanced, and the focus is generally good. Sharpness depends on focus, seeing, and guiding. Focus just means getting it right, with seeing you get better results with stacked images, and guiding depends on the quality of your mount and the length of exposures.

You can also tweak the image in software like Photoshop or PixInsight. I have attached a fairly extremely stretched version of your Moon shot that I processed in PixInsight using curves and the HDRWavelet Transform. I think yours is a better image, but this shows how software tweaking can bring out different details.

Light pollution is a problem for deep sky astrophotography, not for planetary and lunar imaging. The planets and the Moon are sufficiently bright that they overcome the light pollution. I live in Los Angeles and do deep sky imaging, and get OK results (IMHO) even with light pollution (check out my web site).

Good optics are critical. The better the scope, the better the image. The quality of the mount -- its stability, ability to track accurately, etc., is also very important. A good scope on a poor mount will produce poor astrophotos.

I would recommend you check out Ron Wodaski's web site and his book, the new CCD Astronomy, it provides an excellent introduction to astrophotography.



Mike Salway of IceInSpace has a great article planetary imaging using a web camera to capture a sequence of images and stacking them to produce amazing results. The primary software for this is Registax, which will run under WINE in Linux, but I don't know about the Mac.

HTH and clear skies,

--Andy

Hi Andy, thanks for you comments. I've had a go at tweaking the image in Photoshop, but i'd prefer to do as little 'tweaking' as posible. I think i also struggle to find focus in some images. I'll keep working at it and will hopefully get one worth printing soon.

I'll take a look at that website and hopefully learn a thing or two.

Cheers

Tom

[JAICOA]

A fine shot it is very sharp for this method, Always take many shots of different settings one will always be that special keeper. Clear Skies