Last night (Tuesday) was interesting, to say the least. First off, I had been up to about 2:30AM and got up at 6 for work. Yay, coffee. Thankfully it was a short day and traffic was forgiving, so I was home by just after 4PM.
According to CDS at 5PM, I had a window of opportunity at midnight to continue my Lunar imaging sequence:
I really didn't want to be up until midnight, though. At about 10PM, I took a look outside. The Moon was just coming up over the roof, and it looked pretty clear. Well, no time like now! Grabbed my 80mm, camera, and got the mount from my shed. Set this up, and proceeded to take some pics.
I have used this scope/camera combo for over three years now. All I ever do with this particular scope, a C80-HD, is take pics with it. The focuser is set with the thumbscrew for the camera, so I just make sure of the focus and off I go. I haven't had to adjust it for quite some time. But last night, I thought it was way off. It was like looking through a fishbowl. Every so often things would snap into clarity, then back to swimming.....
Lucky imaging, here we go.... I took 36 frames. Ran them through PIPP and had a look at the output. Wow, what a bunch of unfocused looking crap
I picked out the ones that were somewhat good focus, and deleted the rest. So that left me with 8 frames to work with. Processed those with AS2, and I was less than pleased with the result:It is what it is. Going back outside, the clouds were moving in. By the time I tore down the scope, the Moon was covered with big white fluffies. Well, I tried.
I go downstairs again to have a look at my image. Yech
Just for the fun of it, I take a look at CDS again, and now it shows me this:Are you kidding me? Well, there's no way I'm staying up past midnight; I'm wiped. So I bid good night to the girls and toddle off.
And that should be the end of the story. You would hope...
It would indeed be, if it wasn't for the fact I have a magic bladder...... It has to be magic or alchemy; no known scientific process can create fluid from nothing
Go to bed parched, wake up with a pool in my gut. Amazing that.So, all that to say, Guess what woke me up at just after 3AM. You're right, it wasn't the
Out I go again. It was a bit chilly too. I only took 24 frames, but they all came out much better, and I ended up with this:
By now it's just past 4AM. Here we go again...!! Oh coffee, where would I be without ye.... Well, I'll survive I'm sure. So this is the sequence from Aug. 8th to the 13th:
I noticed that the image from Aug 8th looked a lot like one of the images I made in Sept 2018 of an eight day run with ol' Luna. I checked in Stellarium, and the picture I took of the Moon on Sept 17, 2018 is at almost the same illumination as the image I have from Aug 8 of this year; it's at 64.5% illumination, and the one from Sept 17 2018 is at 63.8%. I compared the two images; I really can't see a difference.
That led me to combining the two images for an 11 day sequence. The first 5 are from Sept 12 - 16, 2017 and the last 6 are from Aug 8 - 13. I notice a difference in my processing technique as well; what was I thinking with the 5th shot
BTW, this is scaled down a lot; the original image is 20,600 X 2000 pixels. If you're curious, the original image is here; it's just over 16MB in size.
I also lined up the images with a grid line; the bottom of the Moon pictures all line up, and I tried to keep Mare Crisium as the "focal point" for lining up the Moon itself. Depending on the time of the shots; the Moon shifts position as the night progresses, so I took some creative liberty with that.
Just as an afterthought: the first image of the Moon is 13.5% illuminated, and the last one is 98.4%.
I'll have to see what CDS says later today. That's if I can find some toothpicks to keep my eyelids open
Must get back to work; have a great day/night all,
