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

[Akira]

Colin, I'm glad you could at least capture some images of the full moon.  I tentatively downloaded your post, fumbled it in Camera Raw File to realize the colorful lights of the town below was nicely captured.

I'm no expert of PP either (I don't even know how to create masks!), but, for such a combination of the bright moon and very dark cityscape, I typically expose not to blow out the detail of the moon and lower the contrast drastically in PP to start processing.  When I was using D750, I always chose the Picture Control to "flat".

[ColinM]

Thanks Akira and Øivind
I'm reassured by similar questions dropping up on the Cloudynights group.

I'll have a play with contrast again.

[Øivind Tøien]

When I initially bought my tracker, one of the motivations was the aspect of capturing the tail of a comet. Unitil this day I have tracked and captured many comets, however they have all been blue-green snowballs, and the fantastic comet Neowise appeared in summer when there was no dark here at these high latitudes. Right now Comet C/2021 A1 Leonard is getting brighter each day  and is estimated to reach magnitude 4.18 at its closest approach to earth December 12 according to Stellarium. However by then it will be too low on the horizon here when it is dark. So with one of the last chances for moonless clear weather I got up before day break this morning to capture it in spite of -37°C recorded at the airport and -34°C I recorded outside my cabin. My alarm clock partially failed due to low battery, so I got up at 6:30, and was just able to bundle up, hurry to a nearby location and set up to make 1/2 hour of exposures before it was too much daylight. I have not yet succeeded in doing the comet stacking in DSS without too much artifacts, but to my joy single processing of one of the first frames clearly shows the warm tail of Comet Leonard.



Single tracked 60 sec exposure with 300mm f/4 PF, f/4.5 front aperture, on D500, ISO 400, processed in CNX-D and CNX2.

[Bruno Schroder]

Congrats, Øivind. Good one, waiting for your fully processed stack.
Here, I’m slowly giving up hope. After weeks and weeks of grey skies, the forecast remains grey and grey and grey …

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks Bruno, still working on the stacking. The following animated gif should give a good idea why it is tricky to stack comet images - this comet moves fast!



28 frame animation, some frames skipped, total recorded time 45 minutes.

[Akira]

Øivind, thank you for sharing the comet image.  Again, the quality may not satisfy your standard, the emerald blue color of the comet is very well rendered.  And the GIF image is simply joy to watch.  Indeed, the comet travels fast!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for your kind words Akira.
The stacking did not improve the image much, I got a bit more of the tail, but noise levels were quite high and only semi-sucessful with registering on the comet - the comet+star stacking (not shown) came out with very weird colors and shape of stars. I probably would need more frames for this to work properly, and the color shift in the background towards daybreak likely did not help...





[Edit: Image replaced with a smaller version as the larger one did not contain much more information.]

[Akira]

Øivind, thank you for sharing the additional experience.  Obviously, the comets are very challenging astral bodies to shoot.  Idealistically, you may need a camera with the extremely clean high-ISO capability or an array of the same cameras aligned precisely to yield multiple images for stacking simultaneously.   

[Øivind Tøien]

Yes, the small size and need for heavy crop also makes them challenging. At the current pixel density, D500 is currently almost as good as they get and up towards the theoretical limit. Keep in mind that full frame sensors when cropped down to DX are equal or worse. Here is one of the original frames. The comet is the tiny blue-green dot to the lower left -just a hint of any tail shown. Another challenge was that it was aimed in the direction of the worst light pollution (about 2 stops worse that the best I have encountered lately) also creating strong gradients, although it helped a little that it was 40+ degrees above horizon at the time.  On the plus size was also that there was not much thermal noise at an ambient temperature of -34°C!



So the most efficient quality improvement would be going to a darker site with less light pollution, more total time on the target and larger aperture and magnification, as used in many of the beautiful comet images posted in the astro fora done with larger telescopes. However the comet is going to become much brighter, so for those living at a lower latitude, I would wait for it to get at its closest December 12.

[Jakov Minić]

I tried capturing Leonard today, but it seems i am late to the party.
Also, a much longer lens with a more megapixel body would help.
Instead, let me share a Df+20mm shot of the night sky, featuring Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, all lined up.
Jupiter at 10 o'clock, Venus at 6 o'clock, Saturn in between.
Shot from the ancient fort of Lubenice, Cres, Croatia.

[Nasos Kosmas]

Nice comet shots Oivid  and the PP series even better
Following your success photos with 300pf Iam the happy owner of this model too

Here is one shot with z50  300pf+ 2x III and the overall resolution is higher than my 200-500! ( OK the contrast is a little lower)
Amazing
I’ve got a great excuse to shot the moon again and again
F 11, 1/125, ISO 200 handheld

[Nasos Kosmas]

? Double post

[ColinM]

Here is one shot with z50  300pf+ 2x III

Delicious work Nasos.
Great detail, contrast and a tangible feel of texture

If the moon really is made of green cheese, then this picture is good enough to eat

[Nasos Kosmas]

If the moon really is made of green cheese, then this picture is good enough to eat

Thank you Colin
I like this phase of the moon, is the best to see the cheesy surface

[Øivind Tøien]

The 300pf+ TC20E III seems to work very well for you, Nasos, and also the combination of VR, a steady hand and apparently quite good atmospheric conditions. The "3D" effect is very nice, and it is refreshing to see the moon with a different orientation than occurs naturally up here north - it sort gives association to traveling above the moon surface in a spacecraft. And thanks for the comet comment.