Author Topic: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images  (Read 178023 times)

Øivind Tøien

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #645 on: December 27, 2020, 00:55:09 »
Great captures, Nasos! You got them both in the same frame, and Saturn's rings visible so that is certainly a win. Also a very nice wide capture, showing the closeness of the planets.

I clouded over here on the December 21 and the following days, but I had my the hopes up for a Christmas Eve capture.  I set up the tracker early at the previous location, and hoped some early IR captures could detect it early by darkening the sky. But no planets showed up.
#1



I waited and waited, but the only thing that caught my attention was cloud formation like one of the Dementors out of a Harry Potter movie.
#2

(Visible light capture)

Had the dementor hidden the planets?

Then suddenly, the planets dived out from below a dark cloud, hardly visible to the eye.
#3

(55mm f/3.5 on D500, cropped to about 2/3 of the frame)

I got very busy quickly re-aiming the 300mm with stacked converters and AW1 towards Jupiter and Saturn before they disappeared. However at only 1.5° altidude I knew it was a long shot to get any resolution out of it shooting through this much atmosphere. Autostakkert did not want to deal with two targets, and most were too blurry, so I ended up just editing the best frame in CNX2. One of Jupiter's moons, likely Ganymede shows up faintly to the right of the planet:
#4

(840mm on AW1, 0.8 s at f/11, tracked exposure, slight crop)

By the time I quickly switched to the D500 to increase exposure beyond what the AW1 was capable of (it was that faint), Saturn was already diving into the dark clouds below.
#5

(840mm on D500, 0.5s /f11, tracked exposure)



A bonus was that while waiting, there was a clear view to Mars high in the sky from the location, so I got to use the waiting time to extend my series with another stack showing the shrinking appearance as Mars moves away from us.
#6


(all but the first, 300mm with stacked 1.4x and 2.x converters on AW1, stacked exposures)
Øivind Tøien

Nasos Kosmas

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #646 on: December 27, 2020, 08:52:47 »
Great Oivid you made your effort even with these difficulties! You have something to remember from these days :)
One thing I learned is that we had to see and capture it on the 21th but this didn’t came due to weather conditions, two days later there were more apart
I have to find some time to make my try with the stackers
Keep on!

Øivind Tøien

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #647 on: December 28, 2020, 00:13:39 »

Thanks for your kind comment Nasos. Unfortunately the distance between the planets are increasing more rapidly now than it was shrinking when they were coming together. Given the low altitude here I suspect it will be a hard getting enough resolution to see any details. However I would certainly have liked to try them at 5° above the horizon instead of the 1.5° altitude I got above, even if I only could do one of them at a time. (They will be out of range for the lens/sensor combination I used for the closeup above in a couple of days.)  It is possible that part of the blurriness was due to the long shutter speed that could not freeze the atmospheric movements, so it could make sense to try higher ISO.

They are getting higher in the sky through the spring, but also closer to the sun, so at my latitudes it will really not be useful conditions to image them again before dark comes back in August next year.
Øivind Tøien

armando_m

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #648 on: December 29, 2020, 15:22:35 »
Planets + moonlit foreground
V1 + 18.5 f1.8
3 sec exposure on a beach chair
Armando Morales
D800, Nikon 1 V1, Fuji X-T3

Nasos Kosmas

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #649 on: December 29, 2020, 15:41:03 »
nice summer mood!
Shoot with  AF 80-200 2.8  on Z50

golunvolo

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #650 on: December 29, 2020, 17:43:47 »
Wonderful Nasos

Akira

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #651 on: December 29, 2020, 17:53:56 »
Øivind, the cloud formation image is beautiful!

Armando and Nasos, I enjoy your atmospheric images with the rare universal pageant!
"The eye is blind if the mind is absent." - Confucius

"Limitation is inspiration." - Akira

Øivind Tøien

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #652 on: January 22, 2021, 12:50:47 »
+1 to your conjunction images Armando and Nasos. Thanks for the comment Akira.

Another conjunction captured today and my first image of Uranus. It is the pale blue "star" centered towards the bottom. It is a fairly big planet, but distance is far outside Saturn, so apparent size is rather minimal compared to Mars that has already moved quite far from us. I did not know it was even bright enough to be captured without a telescope. This was just a fairly quick one without tracker with my 300 PF at f/4.5 on the D500, 0.5sec. at ISO 100 with maximally pulled shadows in CNX-D, cropped to less than half of the frame.




The quarter moon was also close, so I could not resist a quick capture with stacked TCs just to as a reminder that this is the moon thread, although seeing was not that great.

Øivind Tøien

Nasos Kosmas

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #653 on: January 23, 2021, 21:13:00 »
Very nice Oivid! so we see Mars the orange star up and Uranus the blue star down in the same capture?

As of moon I just sow this capture and I am very skeptical for my gear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfDMU92JqI&t=18s


Hugh_3170

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #654 on: January 23, 2021, 22:47:58 »
No, no - Mars and Uranus are planets.   ;D

Our sun is a star.
Hugh Gunn

Øivind Tøien

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #655 on: January 23, 2021, 22:53:05 »
Very nice Oivid! so we see Mars the orange star up and Uranus the blue star down in the same capture?

As of moon I just sow this capture and I am very skeptical for my gear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfDMU92JqI&t=18s

Thanks Nasos, you got that right with respect to the planets.  ;)

It is not only the lens but the optical quality of the air - that moon video must have required extraordinary good seeing. One can still notice a little jittering at high magnification but it is pretty moderate.
Curiously at 2:58 there is what looks like a bug racing quickly across the right hand side of the field, which makes me wonder how the video was created.
Øivind Tøien

HCS

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #656 on: January 28, 2021, 21:07:28 »
Can't match you for the size of the moon in my shot, but still got it with some cloud colour.
Hans Cremers

HCS

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #657 on: February 06, 2021, 21:54:13 »
One from some years ago.
Hans Cremers

Øivind Tøien

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #658 on: February 15, 2021, 11:49:34 »
Nice contrast to the forest HCS.

"Moon dance" from today:




And a more normal handheld new moon, hard to resist although seeing was not that great:

Øivind Tøien

HCS

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Re: [Theme] Show us your best moon (and solar system) images
« Reply #659 on: February 15, 2021, 15:57:49 »
Nice contrast to the forest HCS.

Thanks Øivind!

"Moon dance" from today:

And a more normal handheld new moon, hard to resist although seeing was not that great:

First one is not too shabby  8) Great result!
Hans Cremers