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

[Bob Foster]

Øivind,

Thank you.

Capture details: D850, AF-S Nikkor 500mm f4.0D IF-ED + TC-14EII, mounted on Sachtler ENG 2 CF HD / Video 18 S1. Nikon lens foot replaced by Wimberly AP-554. Analogous to a suggestion that Birna made years ago I've inserted a piece of thin wall aluminium tubing covered with a wrap of durometer 70 rubber between the foot and the lens barrel. This really does help stability.  Release With MC-30A. Deliberately a bit underexposed to preserve some detail in the brightest areas- 1/100, f4, ISO 64.

Processing Details:

Post 918- Developed in Photo Ninja- whatever version was current in March of 2021.  Development "as is" except details slider moved to "5" and minimal sharpening at radius of 0.5, sharpening set to "60" - "50" is the default. Exported to Capture One as a .tiff with .xmp.

Post 926- Developed in Capture One. Exposure reduced by 1/6 stop to minimize burnout.

Both Posts- I've reduced contrast to best show detail of both the brightly illuminated and rather dark areas then brought up brightness until just a hint of burnout is present. Then I converted to B&W as follows: blue channel 100, magenta and cyan channels -80, red, yellow and green channels -100. At least when using this lens  and converter the image appears cleaner; this despite the long held reputation of the blue channel being the noisiest. I then applied  blue and yellow split tones to the image in 926, and a very little blue tone only to 918. I then ran through the normal (for Capture One) juggling of noise reduction and sharpening parameters  to achieve the best image I could get from the raw/tiff file and then followed up introducing just a bit of adjustment with the clarity, structure, and dehaze sliders- I can't go far with any of these without degrading the image with artifacts. Sharpening radius set to 0.3 for the image shown in post 918 with no export sharpening applied, Sharpening set to 0.5 for the image in post 926 with export sharpening set to 0.4, 80% for the posted .jpg.

I've not used Topaz Labs products here. To me it seems as if Topaz, in making the Sharpen AI program/plug in easier to use over the past few years, that there is now considerably less control of the artifacts that are generated. When using Sharpen AI 5.6.1 I spend more time cleaning up the artifacts than the result is, to me, worth. I do keep a copy of Sharpen AI 1.4.6 on my system- in that version when the sharpen and remove noise sliders were set to about 1/6 to 1/5 of what the algorithm "recommended" there was an improvement that often did not require extensive retouching. I'll note that sharpening function in version 3.3.2 of DeNoise AI is less apt to produce problematic results. Here, I didn't observe any worthwhile improvement, at some other times with other subjects, I've been quite pleased with the result. For what It's worth I also tried the motion blur function in Focus Magic(a deconvolution type sharpener) version 500b- greatly magnified there was a slight improvement, but given that I processed the image for viewing on the internet I did not save the result.

*****

ColinM,

Thank you. The photos of the moon I've posted were taken at about N34°49' 25", W96°34'26"

At full moon 50% of the moon's surface is visible. Over time the orbit of the moon allows about 59% of the moon's surface may be seen from earth.

A worthwhile discussion about your question about the apparent rotation of the moon is at https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/orientation-of-the-moon.814633/

Bob

[ColinM]

Thanks Bob,
Yes it was more that the facd of the moon visible to us seemed to have rotated between some of the different images posted recently.
e.g. between 2 o'clock in one image and 5 o'clock in another

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the details, Bob.

Jupiter is not only our biggest planet, it also rotates quite fast with a Jupiter day being just short of 10 hours. I tried to use the opportunity to image it near opposition Sept 27. Here is the result including the Great Red Spot as a marker of the rotation, captured in rather mediocre seeing with 300mm /f4 PF+TC14E+TC20E at f/13 on Nikon 1 AW1. These show the movement in less than an hour. I divided my captures into four nine-minute parts, each about 750 frames, with a card change and copy in the middle (9 min is longer than one would record at high definition with a telescope and god seeing to avoid movement artifacts, but at this resolution it had to do). Processed in PIPP, stacked the best 30% frames in Autostakkert with 3x drizzle and applied wavelets in Registax before some minimal final edits in CNX2. Then a final alignment +GIF was generated in PIPP.



Animation of the same:




And of course some of the moons (Calisto, Ganymede, Europa, Io, left to right), although the seeing did not inspire to do any composite that included the face of Jupiter:




I plan do do some more imaging of it when it gets higher in the sky along with Saturn in the coming months, hoping for better seeing.

[Akira]

I would say that is rather impressive shot with the 2268mm equivalent.

[Bruno Schroder]

I would say that is rather impressive shot with the 2268mm equivalent.

I unambiguously second that.
Øivind, I also particularly like the diagonal of the moons and Jupiter in the last shot.

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks Akira and Bruno, it is always fun to see what one can get out of the equipment one has, otherwise astro photo can be a rather slippery slope with no limits as to how much one can spend.

The comment about the nice diagonal inspired some compositing and creation of an animated gif from the first and last take above. Note that I did not compensate for the change in tilt of Jupiter resulting from the rotation of earth in any of these. The apparent sizes of the moons got exaggerated as they did not have the benefit of wavelet sharpening that was applied to Jupiter. But it gives the impression how quickly their relative positions change.

[ColinM]

I would say that is rather impressive shot with the 2268mm equivalent.

I fully agree with Bruno and Akira.
As well as making really good use of available lenses & adapters, the end results are beautiful and a fascinating glimpse into part of our solar system I rarely see.

Thank you Øivind

[Akira]

Thanks Akira and Bruno, it is always fun to see what one can get out of the equipment one has, otherwise astro photo can be a rather slippery slope with no limits as to how much one can spend.

The comment about the nice diagonal inspired some compositing and creation of an animated gif from the first and last take above. Note that I did not compensate for the change in tilt of Jupiter resulting from the rotation of earth in any of these. The apparent sizes of the moons got exaggerated as they did not have the benefit of wavelet sharpening that was applied to Jupiter. But it gives the impression how quickly their relative positions change.

Øivind, for whatever reason, this GIF image with the satellites looks more enjoyable than the closeup of the Jupiter, possibly because of the representation of the action of the astral bodies in a larger scale!

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the kind comment Colin.
I agree with you Akira, both the movement, the less blurry impression of Jupiter at that scale and the space around is helping - something to work on if I get to make more attempts at better seeing. While the approach is closest near opposition, it takes months to make a big impact on the apparent size.

[mxbianco]

Moon bumping against Tête de Girardin, French Queyras

NIKON 1 V1, FT1 + 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G AF-P DX VR IF-ED zoom-Nikkor @300mm

Ciao from Massimo

[Øivind Tøien]

Very nice, perfect placement of the moon!

[mxbianco]

Very nice, perfect placement of the moon!

Thanks, Øivind!

Luckily, the Moon was crossing the ridge, apparently undecided if disappearing behind it or not, and I had plenty of time to frame and shoot!

Ciao from Massimo

[Akira]

Moon bumping against Tête de Girardin, French Queyras

NIKON 1 V1, FT1 + 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G AF-P DX VR IF-ED zoom-Nikkor @300mm

Ciao from Massimo

Amazing, Massimo!

[Fons Baerken]

Great setup for these shots, 1 V1, ft1 + 70-300mm, there is also a mount specific 70-300mm but expensive even 2nd hand.

[mxbianco]

Great setup for these shots, 1 V1, ft1 + 70-300mm, there is also a mount specific 70-300mm but expensive even 2nd hand.

My preferred setup is with the 1V3, which is 18 Mpix vs 10 Mpix of the 1V1, but at the time I had the 1V1 ready to shoot...
1V3+200-500mm/5.6+ eventually TC-14eIII and/or TC20eIII will give me all the reach I want

The native 70-300mm is a nice lens, but also reputedly fragile and prone to breaking, I prefer the DX-covering 70-300 AF-P VR, which also works perfectly on the Zfc.

1V1+70-300+FT1 is one of my standard sets when I go walking up the mountains and might encounter wild animals: lightness and reach!

Ciao from Massimo