[Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks Fons, this has certainly been fun and one can always hope for days with even better seeing that will improve upon it. I like to think I captured a hint of a cloud pattern on Venus, but at 3x drizzle it is hard to distinguish from processing artifacts.

[Akira]

Thanks Fons, this has certainly been fun and one can always hope for days with even better seeing that will improve upon it. I like to think I captured a hint of a cloud pattern on Venus, but at 3x drizzle it is hard to distinguish from processing artifacts.

Amazing result of the Venus that looks spherical!  The closeups of the black spots of the sun are to appreciate, too!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the enthusiastic comment, Akira.

[Nasos Kosmas]

Very nice captures Oivid, thank you!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks Nasos.
[BTW  to tweak out a little more resolution I replaced the detailed sunspot image with a new edit that was a stack of the 10% best frames with 3x drizzle turned on.]

[Øivind Tøien]

I found another opportunity yesterday for a daytime lunar IR capture, same setup as before. I stacked the 10% best of 1562 frames captured in 12-bit mode at a gain of 85 (which is unity gain in 12-bit mode) and 25ms exposure. It is in nearly the same lunar phase as the last one from one month ago (somehow good conditions seem to appear in this phase) and it is interesting how the different orientation completely changes the character of the image.

[ColinM]

I found another opportunity yesterday for a daytime lunar IR capture

Another very lovely result Øivind
I take it this approach is much kinder to your sleep patterns too!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks Colin, sure is. I wish I could learn how to spot Jupiter in daytime, but no luck so far, although Stellarium tells me it should be visible.
Here is another IR-Venus I did at the same session. Seeing went a bit crazy at times, stack of the best 5% of about 150K frames.

[Roland Vink]

I stacked the 10% best of 1562 frames

Amazing images of the moon!

How do you select the best frames, surely not manually? Maybe images with the largest file size - I'm assuming soft or blurred images have less information, so have smaller file size?

[Øivind Tøien]

Amazing images of the moon!

How do you select the best frames, surely not manually? Maybe images with the largest file size - I'm assuming soft or blurred images have less information, so have smaller file size?

Thanks Roland, I use Autostakkert that is able to stack both raw video frames (.ser files) as used here or raw files (as earlier in the thread with AW1 frames). It will automatically pick the best frames based on an initial analysis, but not sure about the exact criteria. There are some choices of different algorithms - I tend to stay with the default. Earlier in the thread I also used PIPP to center and sort iAW1 mages by quality before stacking, but it is strictly not needed as Autostakkert alone will do the job. Then the stacked file is sharpened in WaveSharp to pull out the details, and I am doing some final adjustments in CNX2, including a final sharpening step.