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First shots of the moon.
#265134 07/03/09 06:40 AM
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I know there are a few Astronomy folks around here, so I thought I'd share some of my first image attempts of the moon.

As most of you know I have a Celestron CPC1100 scope that I purchased about a year ago. You may also not be aware, but Webcam AstroPhotography is the cheapest and easiest way to get started. Down the road, you can purchase more expensive CCD based cameras for deep space stuff.

Anyway, I found a cheap Logitech Quickcam on craigslist, modified it by removing the lens, super glued a 35mm film case to it which fits right into the focuser, and bingo, my 11" scope just became one big a$$ lens. \:\)

I won't get into a lot of details on the capturing/processing, but basically you capture an AVI file, adjust the exposure, frames per second, gain, etc., then use another program to break up the AVI into seperate images, remove the garbage, then stack what you have left into the final image.

For my first attempt, I limited my captures to about 40seconds, which is like a 500mb AVI file. To really get better results I need to increase that time, especially for planets which you use 3-4 minutes.

Anyway, here are my first pics ever of portions of the moon.








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Re: First shots of the moon.
SirQuack #265147 07/03/09 09:20 AM
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Very cool Randy!

Backyard Astronomy sure has come a long way since I did it seriously. Most I use anymore are binoculars since they are easy to carry when out camping. Phoenix has become so bright and often so polluted viewing is usually very poor.

What are the coolest things you have seen?


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Re: First shots of the moon.
grunt #265149 07/03/09 10:06 AM
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Sounds like fun!


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Re: First shots of the moon.
EFalardeau #265154 07/03/09 11:43 AM
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I saw this through my telescope while looking at the moon once.


Rick
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Re: First shots of the moon.
SirQuack #265156 07/03/09 11:53 AM
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That is very cool Randy. Sounds like you had fun turning the scope into a camera.


Fred

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Re: First shots of the moon.
RickF #265158 07/03/09 12:11 PM
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 Originally Posted By: RickF
I saw this through my telescope while looking at the moon once.



What jerks. They go off galavanting and leave Rosie home alone to clean up after them?


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Re: First shots of the moon.
MarkSJohnson #265160 07/03/09 02:50 PM
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Thanks guys,

Hey Grunt, so are I'd say the coolest things I've seen visually using an eyepiece are The Great Hercules Star Cluster, Orion Nebula, various Galaxies like Andromeda, Whirlpool, etc.. The planets are also great, I can normally see at least 4-5 moons around Jupitor and Saturn, and also the great red spot on Jupitor and the rings of Saturn are awesome with this larger scope.

Probably what is the neatest feature is the GPS ability of the scope, and the hundreds of thousands of items in its database. Once I do the skyalign, I can take a tour of the sky, planets, clusters, galaxies, etc. at the push of a button, and the scope tracks them automatically. \:\)


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Re: First shots of the moon.
SirQuack #265163 07/03/09 03:17 PM
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Wow! That is a great setup. That's the best use of a GPS ever!


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Re: First shots of the moon.
EFalardeau #265164 07/03/09 03:20 PM
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That is a cool use of GPS!


Fred

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Re: First shots of the moon.
RickF #265173 07/03/09 05:27 PM
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Nice work Randy.


quote=RickF]I saw this through my telescope while looking at the moon once.

[/quote]

You hitting the shrooms again Rick?

Last edited by mdrew; 07/03/09 05:27 PM.
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