11-Day-Old Moon

[Leedsgreen]

Dear All,

I've been waiting for a clear night to try my GF1 on the moon and finally the clouds have cleared. Seeing was only average (stars twinkling like crazy, which might be good for romantics but not astrophotographers)!

Really pleased with the screen for manual focusing and remote lead for stable shooting!

Shot taken with my 400mm refractor using 4x Barlow (giving 1600mm). 50 shots in total, with best 30 stacked for final image. Reduced to 25% in size.

Thanks for looking,

Nick

 

[JunT86]

Wow! That's really nice photo of the moon! Very clear! I've been thinking of doing a shot like this but don't have the proper lens yet...

 

[maxpiz]

Congratulations for your "moon":smile:.
I am very interested in this kind of shots, Do you could explain better this?

Shot taken with my 400mm refractor using 4x Barlow (giving 1600mm). 50 shots in total, with best 30 stacked for final image. Reduced to 25% in size.
Thanks for looking,
Nick

It was exactly 1600mm or (2x) 3200mm? And then do you can explain to me better :"with best 30 stacked for final image"?
Thanks a lot!!!

 

[~tc~]

Tried taking a shot of the moon tonight with the 45-200. Had a helluva time figuring out the exposure, and none of the shots turned out that well - they were not sharp at all. Out of focus? Shutterspeed too long? Diffraction (mostly tried small apertures)

 

[Leedsgreen]

Maxpiz and ~tc~,

Sorry for delay in reply, only saw your posts today. I actually used two barlow lenses (2.5x and 1.5x) which gives a total focal length of 1500mm on my 400mm refractor (but you are correct in that the cropped GF1 sensor makes this equivalent of 3000mm on a full-frame sensor). 1000mm focal length gives a moon image of approximately 9mm on any sensor and given that the GF1 sensor has a long edge of 18mm, then 1500mm works out at moon image of 13.5mm. This is about right, because it leaves space for the moon to wander (which it can do when using a cheapish tracking mount).

Due to atmospheric disturbance its very hard to get one single good shot of the moon but the simple way round this is to stack images in a dedicated program (such as Registax or Avistack, both of which are free) which drammatically reduces noise and improves sharpness. In fact, the best way to image any planets (including the moon) is surprisingly using a webcam (with their small lenses removed, attached to a telescope). As these offer frame rates of 10 fps you can capture literally thousands of images and stack the best ones, to get some remarkable results for a relatively cheap outlay.

Doing this with large jpegs from cameras is much more time consuming and less satisfactory but I was interested to see how my GF1 would manage for a full-moon shot (which seems OK overall).

Out of interest, I have attached one of my best webcam images (apologise, this isn't done using u4/3)!

Nick

 

[Djarum]

What size aperature refractor? I own an antares 105mm 660mm fl achromat.

 

[Leedsgreen]

Djarum,

My refractor is only 400mm with an aperture of 66mm, hence the need for a few Barlows. I imagine with one 2x Barlow, yours would be fine for imaging the moon with your scope. I also have a 1500mm Maksutov scope, with aperture of 127mm, which I use for webcam imaging (and the second picture I posted).

The main issue I have found is that the shutter clack of the GF1 tended to pull my refractor out of focus and cause a slight wobble of the scope, causing some blurring. Electronic silent shutter would be wonderful!

Nick

 

[Djarum]

Djarum,

My refractor is only 400mm with an aperture of 66mm, hence the need for a few Barlows. I imagine with one 2x Barlow, yours would be fine for imaging the moon with your scope. I also have a 1500mm Maksutov scope, with aperture of 127mm, which I use for webcam imaging (and the second picture I posted).

The main issue I have found is that the shutter clack of the GF1 tended to pull my refractor out of focus and cause a slight wobble of the scope, causing some blurring. Electronic silent shutter would be wonderful!

Nick

This is still better than dealing with mirror slap. Actually, I have no issues with the E-P1 getting out of focus with the moon. I just haven't had any good nights of steady air. I have some shots of the moon in my gallery if you'd like to see. Here is an example:

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[Leedsgreen]

Djarum,

If that is one single shot then it looks exceptional to me! Have you tried stacking them? For example, if you stacked 30 in Registax, the final image would be even clearer etc. As it is, that is great.

I wonder if we were imaging on the same night (20/10/10 for me)? (Although slight difference in liberation of the moon makes me think not).

Thanks for sharing,

Nick