Lunar Mosaic - 22rd March 2010

Myself and Declan Molly were observing the moon last night through my TEC140 and gave it a once over with the DMK camera. 10 video clips were recorded to form the mosaic. Each video clip was made up of of 2,000 frames and processed in Registax 5(90% quality level, no sharpening applied). From each video clip, the resulting image was saved. The 10 resulting images were then imported into Photoshop and merged. Sharpening then applied to the final image in PS.

Full size image is here:
Lunar Mosaic
(316kb download)

Regards,

Michael.

Jeez Michael, that's a great result there from you both, the TEC140 must be a superb visual piece of kit, do you mind if I ask where you got it?

Keith.

Grand image Michael.
Gordon and I were out with the 12" and binoviewer last night and the moon was superb, the shadows cast by the Caucuses were amazing, you captured them well.
The image seems a tiny bit dim to me, although I can see there are small craters in the image that are very bright.

Thanks Keith.

I got the TEC140 a few years ago as part of a trade with a guy in Italy.
They are not cheap but are an excellent telescope - certainly well up there with Takahashi and AP.
Gives very nice sharp images and I continue to be impressed with how well it performs.
Comes with a beautiful 3.5" Starlight Instruments focuser that's a joy to use.

www.telescopengineering.com/

Michael.

Dave_Lillis wrote:

Grand image Michael.
Gordon and I were out with the 12" and binoviewer last night and the moon was superb, the shadows cast by the Caucuses were amazing, you captured them well.
The image seems a tiny bit dim to me, although I can see there are small craters in the image that are very bright.

Yes, same as that with the binoviewer.
I don't there's any image that can capture what it looks like to view the Moon with binoviewers - must really be experienced. I could easiy sit there for hours watching the Moon and I was never a big fan of lunar observing previously.

In terms of brightness, I agree.
Unfortunately, it's a never-ending challange of dynamic range. IMHO, the dynamic range of cameras and PC images is still not up there compared to what the human eye can see through an eyepiece on a bright surface like the Moon.

Michael.

Absolutley excellent capture there Micheal. Well Done.