The Official Shoot the Moon Thread

I do have the prime adapter but didn't use it in this case. I twas just a quick test shot. Next time

TCampbell wrote in post #17950515
When you did the previous stack of 12 images, was it on the same physical machine?

In the lower left corner of your windows screen there's a search field, type in "task manager" and hit return. If you've not launched this before then you'll get a very simplistic view, but click "more details" and it will expand the view. You should now see a list of all running apps and some columns to the right of each task indicating how CPU activity (listed as a percentage of CPU time spent on that task) as well as a column indicating how much memory that task is consuming. It's the memory column that you'll be interested in.

Is DSS actually using much memory? If not, my suspicion is that you've got more free memory on the machine than DSS is expecting.

I won't be able to be much help because most of the time I'm using a Mac and I only have one machine that runs Windows 10. I do my stacking in PixInsight and don't have any experience using DSS.

But... I actually DO keep around a virtual machine (I use VMware) that runs... Windows XP (for just such an emergency). There's just so much that works fine in XP that doesn't like to run in Windows 10.

I only have one PC - with Windows 10 (Yuch!) and a very slow laptop that also came with 10.

I use Task Manager all the time - Control/Alt/Delete brings it up faster. Have you checked 'Detail' or 'Services' on 10? There are over 90 'apps' running all the time... and I have no idea which I can turn off without crashing my computer.

Why would having too much memory cause DSS to tell me I don't have enough?

I just thought of something to try though... I think I did it before I stacked the 12 images... post the results later - if it works.

Thanks for the suggestions - maybe that's what triggered me thinking about what I did before... I deleted all the data files from previous stacking attempts.

STIC wrote in post #17950307
Stellarium is great...

Now, this may sound silly, but, have you thought of running a defrag through your PC to clean up old files, memory and the like?

I do it fairly regularly, every other month or so, otherwise, with the amount of images I process, it gets crammed full...

Just a thought...

Well, thanks for the suggestion, and it doesn't sound silly. But "defrag" (defragmenting) doesn't clean up old files or memory. When you delete files, it leaves those spaces blank on your hard drive, and the next file you save is input to the blank spot. If the file is larger than the blank spot, it loads the rest of the file into the next available blank spot or spots. This fragments the file and it takes the computer longer to find all the fragments and put them back together. Defragmenting the hard drive rearranges the files to put all the fragmented files back together. The last few times I tried to defrag my hard drives, it thought about it for a minute or so, and told me they didn't need defragmenting.

Something else that slows a computer is obsolete or unnecessary files in the registry. When files or programs (apps) are deleted, the computer doesn't necessarily delete the data from the registry, and the computer spends unnecessary time scanning those files. Running a program to clean the registry can help improve the speed, especially an older computer that has a lot of registry entries on it. But I've only had this computer a few months, and it's still fairly clean.

Now, I'm going to delete all the stacking data files from earlier work and try stacking something new.

A shot I got of the 2015 Blood Moon. Not the best technical shot, but I enjoy looking at it only because it was such a freak rare occurrence.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AtVc​nc

Mooch55 wrote in post #17951857
A shot I got of the 2015 Blood Moon. Not the best technical shot, but I enjoy looking at it only because it was such a freak rare occurrence.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/AtVc​nc 2015 Blood Moon by -Nicholas Mucha Photography-

Nice capture tho . Those eclipse are always fun to watch especially viewing in a scope .

TCampbell wrote in post #17951355
Also... of course the moon is right side up. It's the camera that was upside down. Is it true that time runs backward south of the equator? (sorry, I couldn't resist)

Look, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who live in the southern hemisphere, and those who wish they did...

Desertraptor wrote in post #17951348
first shot of moon with new Canon 6D
Enhanced colour version. Vibrance at 100%
Taken with Skywatcher ED80
and no it's not upside down.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/FD2B​2P Moon by Peter Ede, on Flickr

Good to see you back after a long time Peter and congrats on that nice 6D.
But then why your moon is upside down?!!! LOL. Sorry couldn't help it.

You guys talking about Desertraptor moon being upside down ... , got a project or challenge for you if you live in the Northern Hemisphere . Next time we have a full moon or a couple days after full moon take a picture of the moon setting in the west just before or shortly after sunrise and look at your image real close and see how the moon looks as compared to a full moon coming up in the east . I think you'll be surprised how it looks comparing moon rise from moon set . In this web image the moon on the left is a rising moon , the moon on the right is a setting moon the next morning .

http://www.timernst.co​m …ives/Resources/​moons.jpeg

Celestron wrote in post #17953723
You guys talking about Desertraptor moon being upside down ... , got a project or challenge for you if you live in the Northern Hemisphere . Next time we have a full moon or a couple days after full moon take a picture of the moon setting in the west just before or shortly after sunrise and look at your image real close and see how the moon looks as compared to a full moon coming up in the east . I think you'll be surprised how it looks comparing moon rise from moon set . In this web image the moon on the left is a rising moon , the moon on the right is a setting moon the next morning .

http://www.timernst.co​m …ives/Resources/​moons.jpeg

But that would require that I get up *before* sunrise to be ready to get that shot!?

Nice shots, Ron!

Celestron wrote in post #17953723
You guys talking about Desertraptor moon being upside down ... , got a project or challenge for you if you live in the Northern Hemisphere . Next time we have a full moon or a couple days after full moon take a picture of the moon setting in the west just before or shortly after sunrise and look at your image real close and see how the moon looks as compared to a full moon coming up in the east . I think you'll be surprised how it looks comparing moon rise from moon set . In this web image the moon on the left is a rising moon , the moon on the right is a setting moon the next morning .

http://www.timernst.co​m …ives/Resources/​moons.jpeg

I did, they're BOTH upside down!

A photo I took a couple of years back.

The ultra-thin crescent Moon yesterday evening, captured only 20.5 hrs after New Moon. Photo taken less than 15 minutes after sunset.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/G5xe​YF