Saturday, August 21, 2010

Better Moon Shots!

Below are my latest shots of the moon.  They show some nice details, but I have some other ideas to try out next time to get even better shots ... I hope.  There's always room for improvement.

Equipment Summary:
  1. Orion StarSeeker 80mm Goto Refractor
  2. Orion Imaging Flip Mirror
  3. Orion StarShoot Planetary Imager
  4. PHD Planetary Software - used to control camera, takes pics, and later to process the pics (e.g. stack and adjust color/clarity)
Date/Time:  8/20/10  10:00pm
Location:  Backyard - Pittsburgh, PA
Seeing:  Clear
Weather:  Warm, Humid
Exposure:  10 ms x 50 images

Experience:  Very good with one hitch -- see notes below.

Notes:
  1. I couldn't quite figure out the flip mirror which should allow you to have an eyepiece on top and the camera in the rear.  I sent an email to Orion customer support.
Lessons Learned:
  1. For the moon, and for my setup at least, it's better to take many short duration images, and then stack (combine) them to create a single, sharper picture.  For each pic below, I stacked fifty 10 ms images.  Next time, I'll try stacking 100, 150, and 200 images to see if there's a difference in the final pic.

Next Time:
  1. Sun with Meade Coronado PST.

Enjoy!
 Moon Shot 1 - Greater detail compared to pics in earlier posts

Moon Shot 1 - Similar to the above pic but without color

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