The Moon 09 January

[Guest AamenHammer]

Took this the same night i was doing some work on Orion.

 

Nikon D750

Sigma 150-600 @600mm

Skywatcher Star Adventurer

External Intervelometer

 

f13 iso100 1/500th  x 8 shots

 

Stacked in Registax and (Probably Over)Processed in PS.

 

Any advice gratefully received.

 

 

 

[Sheila]

Looks nice to me, but I cant give any advice as I only do DSO's.  I am sure someone will be along who can advise you

[Tweedledee]

Love the colour, and it seems nicely focused.  

[Daz Type-R]

Looks nice and sharp, plenty of detail, nicely done.

 

[Stephen]

A very nice image and detail like the colour

[Smithysteve]

Nice image, keep em coming Gareth! ?

[philjay]

Hi Gareth

A favourite subject of mine the moon, I never tire of observing and photographing it and you've done a good job there.

 

Did you shoot in Raw or Jpeg, it looks noisy for ISO 100?

 

Here's what I do with my DSLRs (Canon/Olympus? Nikon) either with telephoto or scope based

Try a set of Raw sub exposures, I usually take a minimum of 20 to get a good smooth image and give me a chance to get some sharper subs in there.

Switch to manual exposure, set the f stop mid range initially

Use an ISO of 200, not too slow and not too fast, your trying to get a fast shutter speed to beat shake/atmospherics etc. 

Now depending on the phase of the moon select your shutter speed by adjusting the speed to under expose the moon slightly using the exposure meter in the display. Get the bar graph to the right of centre.

Try a shot then view. If any part is blown out (over exposed) adjust the speed accordingly, You could also adjust the f stop but I usually leave that mid range.

Try again and again until you get a shot where the bright areas of the moon are not blown out. Yiou can always brighten things in PS afterwards but you cant rescue a washed out exposure.

So err on the under exposed if necessary.

Then when your happy with that take your set.

 

I convert from Raw to 16 bit Tiff which Registax handles.

Don't use jpegs because they are too lossy and you will lose data and they are noisy plus you wont be able to process the final image as much as with Tiff.

Now do the stacking etc in registax and you should have a smooth and maybe slightly under exposed image that can be processed and sharpened far more than with jpeg subs.

 

Hope that helps