6 January 2020 6-Panel Mosaic

[bladekeeper]

Clear all day today. Nary a cloud to be seen, no gossamer wisp of vapor to be had.

I got home as twilight was deepening and quickly got the AVX set out, the scope configured and saddled up. After that, supper preparations were made and food was consumed. After the cleaning up and putting away, I made my way back out to the scope.

Glancing to the west and north, I saw a giant mass of clouds charging for my lunar target and sending out encircling arms in an apparent flanking maneuver. Holy crap! I gotta hurry!

Got the laptop connected, mount fired up, quick aligned, slewed to the Moon, adjusted via RACI, brought up the cam in SharpCap, adjusted focus, exposure, rotation, and ready to go.

I got my first two panels done before the clouds arrived. I finally got the 3rd one done by starting and stopping to let stray tufts pass by. On the 4th, it took a bit longer but I finally got that one done. At this point (two frames left to capture) the clouds overwhelmed me. Bah!

Checking the satellite imagery to see if this was only a temporary setback, I was left more confused than when I started. Stupid cloud cover wasn't even showing up on the satellite imagery. Figures. I get the stealth clouds.

I decided to wait it out and see what happens. It took about an hour and ten minutes before the last vestiges of fluffy doom had passed. I elected to just start all over again.

I just went with the Synta 2× barlow and ASI174MC this time for a single 6-panel mosaic. As usual, each capture was a 1000-frame SER video file, best 10% of each stacked with Autostakkert!, Registax for wavelets, MS ICE for compositing.

20200106 20_53_20_g4_ap166_stitch by Bryan Gabbard, on Flickr

[Lady Fraktor]

That is an amazing image Bryan, very clean and detailed.

[Baskevo]

Jeez man are you okay?? There's no way you didn't cut yourself from how sharp this image is

Awesome job! I truly look forward to your moon images Bryan, they are incredible

[yobbo89]

I was zooming in on your giant 6 panel image looking at the fine detail and i happen to think of interactive encyclopedia encarta and britannica , i believe one of them had an interactive street view much like google street view now days, just panning around look at the surroundings

[Lowjiber]

That one knocked my socks off, Bryan. Surely worth waiting-out the clouds. Nicely done.

Thanks for the share.

Clear Dark Skies

[bladekeeper]

Thanks, friends!

[StarGazer45]

I just can't believe my eyes! It's so well detailed, man!

Congrats on a successful job,

[Juno16]

Wonderful shot (or shots) Bryan!

You are an exceptional lunarographer!

Thanks,
Jim

[bobharmony]

Another excellent effort, sir. I'm glad you had the patience to wait out the evil cloud demons.

Bob

[UlteriorModem]

You have gotten very good with the mosaics Bryan. Well done!

[Don Quixote]

Another one for my favorites list Bryan !
Good show !