Yet another moon shot

[dpastern]

Very happy with this shot - taken using the new rig. Technical details:

1/400
ISO 400
prime focus 900mm 4" f9 refractor (SkyWatcher Equinox ED100) mounted on SkyWatcher EQ6PRO mount.
Canon EOS 1D Mark IIn + Canon electronic remote cable (can't remember the model number)

Single shot, processed in Photoshop CS2 - slight S curve layer, sharpened using smart sharpen (53%, 0.3 pixel, more accurate, lens blur) duplicated layer and ran a Neat Image run on it, then did a layer mask hide all and brushed in only the areas that I wanted Neat Image to clean up. Cropped at 100%.

*warning* largish image, might take a few seconds to download.

http://www.macro-images.com/web/moon_cropped_resized.jpg

Dave

[akpfeiff]

Beautiful hunk of rock there!

[dpastern]

Thanks.

Dave

[SiriusDoggy]

Very, Very nice. Exposure is dead on.

[dpastern]

Thanks, exposure was pure luck. Decided on 1/400 ISO 400 as a starting point, took a few shots, liked it in camera, and left it at that! I may try 1/200 ISO 200 next time and see how that goes. I was surprised I got focus this good - the moon is easier to focus on than I thought!

Dave

[troypiggo]

Mate, that's an absolute cracker! One of the better moon shots I've seen here. Well done!

[gjl711]

Very nice shot. I agree with, one of the better moon shots I've seen.

[dpastern]

Thanks Troy & John.

Dave

[siddr20]

WOW NICE!!!! so much detail :)

[sebastianr]

Great shot, as taken from a astronomy book.
Incredible :)

[dpastern]

Thanks guys. This is my 3rd attempt at the moon, the first with my new telescope. If I can get a shot like this, then *anyone* can. I didn't have to do much at all, and there's not a lot of PP.

Dave

[friz]

I thought I was improving on mine until I saw this. WOW!

[tonybear007]

Wow. A lot more moon than I was expecting to see. Nicely done.

[dpastern]

Thanks guys. I got this printed today on a 8" x 10" :-) As I was studying the image print today, I realised that I could probably get some detail in the highlights by some dodging & burning. Silly me! I also re-processed this shot with another layer for contrast, using a layer mask (hide all) and then selectively burning in areas on the mask to improve contast where *I* wanted it. Not much better, but a subtle improvement in the shot.

I really didn't do much to get this shot - pointed the scope at the moon, set the camera to 1/400, ISO 400 and this was the result. Of course, I did focus quite carefully, the moon seems to be quite an easy subject to focus on, far easier than nebulaes!

Dave

[Dusty]

Wow, what a lovely shot indeed !
Well done.

[markjpcs]

Excellent!

[jeffscra]

Wow...best moon shot I've ever seen! The detail is awesome.

[12 Wyoming]

Newbi Mooner Here!

How close is the original pic to this? I mean if you left out the editing?

This is an awesome shot! Incredible photo!

Joe

[MidnightSun]

A beauty for sure! I'll bet Neil Armstrong doesn't one that good in his scrapbook....:cool:

[dpastern]

Thanks guys.

12 Wyoming, this is the original shot, all I've done is convert from RAW to TIFF, and cropped. RAW had +4 sharpness via DPP but no other adjustments.

http://www.macro-images.com/web/moon_original.jpg

Here's another version, slightly darker and moodier, I increased contrast and played a bit withlayer masks to bring out more detail:

http://www.macro-images.com/web/test%20copy.jpg

Dave

edit: crop is a 100% crop btw. I'm not sure if embedded images hosted elsewhere are meant to be max. size 1024, mods may remove these 2 images...hell, maybe the first image is also oversize, I can't remember!

[12 Wyoming]

Thanks Dave! The original turned out excellent. I don't have the equipment you do, but the 100-400 L will be here today, and maybe I can get some decent shots with it. It's amazing what these lenses can do with a object that far away.

Joe

[Celestron]

Great shot ! Very Sharp !

[dpastern]

Thanks Dave! The original turned out excellent. I don't have the equipment you do, but the 100-400 L will be here today, and maybe I can get some decent shots with it. It's amazing what these lenses can do with a object that far away.

Joe

Welcome. Remember, this was taking at prime focus (i.e. no eyepieces) with my new scope - 100mm aperture, 900mm focal length, i.e. f9.

Dave