CCD vs Film? Lots of time vs no patience? Alright, this is your place to discuss all the astrophotography what's and what's not. You can discuss about techniques, accessories, cameras, whatever....just make sure you also post some nice photos here too!
Since my reticle EP is not here hence drift alignment is difficult presently, I thought I'd give the moon a quick go.
It was a clear and pleasant night last night so a few quick moon shots at prime focus on the VMC200L
Focus was achieved by first focus-locking on sirius. Interestingly the VMC200L will produce double diffraction spikes when off focus which merge to form a single line at critical focus. Visible on bright stars in liveview. Not bad. I guess that's why the spiders are so thick
Anyway, the Moon
Nikon D700, VMC200L at prime focus, ISO400, Exp 1/500s
cloud_cover wrote:Since my reticle EP is not here hence drift alignment is difficult presently, I thought I'd give the moon a quick go.
It was a clear and pleasant night last night so a few quick moon shots at prime focus on the VMC200L
Focus was achieved by first focus-locking on sirius. Interestingly the VMC200L will produce double diffraction spikes when off focus which merge to form a single line at critical focus. Visible on bright stars in liveview. Not bad. I guess that's why the spiders are so thick
Last night was not so clear la... the sky look a bit of hazy due to high cloud. Anyway, the spiders are thick, so that collimination will hold ma... I used to focus using the diffraction spikes, but live view is faster and more accurate.
By the way, quite good if from a single shot (not stack) image. Try stacking la... will improve quite a bit even if you just stack a few shots.
Keep them coming.
Happy imaging and have a nice day.
Yang Weixing "The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
Single shot. I tried stacking in registax but the result was more fuzzy instead while the noise was not visible unless zoomed to 100% anyway in the single shot.
I do have about 52 usable frames to stack though. Any advice?
Oh yeah, do you think the bottom and right of the moon seem to be in softer focus? I can't figure this out. I thought the whole surface would be in focus if one part was. Or is this due to my collimation? This photo is only slightly cropped.
Hi,
I also notice on my near full Moon/full Moon image. This is what I think cause the brighter part of the Moon to look soft (correct me if I'm wrong):
During near full Moon, the sunlight hitting the brighter part of the Moon is near perpendicular to the surface, so there is less shadow cast and thus low contrast (same reason why contrast of the full Moon is low). Also the high brightness of the brighter part of the image also wash out the details. Since the Moon is not a flat object, the sunlight hitting the termintor side is still at a shallower angle casting more shadow than the brighter part, so it had more contrast and look sharper.
Just my S$0.02.
Have a nice day.
Yang Weixing "The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance."
"The universe is composed mainly of hydrogen and ignorance." 