Lunar X

[jnelson]

[quote=jnelson post_id=81708 time=1588279140 user_id=1218]
Please forgive the quality of the images I posted but I am a novice at this however I have been enjoying the process. I came across the celestial phenomenon Lunar X so I wanted to share photos I took on 4/29/20. As I'm sure most of you know, it is somewhat of an optical illusion with the appearance of an "X" near the terminator caused by the angle of sunlight falling on the ridges between a cluster of the craters La Caille, Blanchinus, and Purbach. The first documented sighting was by Dr. William Busler in 1974 although likely had been seen and not formally documented much earlier. The phenomenon is visible a few times per year for a few hours before the 1st quarter phase. I took the image with a Celestron 5SE (my first scope) with moon fliter, 2x Barlow, ZWO ASI120MC-S using Firecapture using planetary image settings (sorry I'm not sophisticated enough at this point to provide more detailed image settings). I processed 100 images with PIPP, stacked with Autostakkert, and sharpened with Registax wavelet. I have been playing with GIMP but did not use it for these images. Waiting for an IR filter to reduce some atmospheric interference and hopefully capture more detailed images of Venus as the ones I've captured while still interesting look like blurred images of a moon phase. THIS REPLACES ORIGINAL POST THAT HAD UNACCESSIBLE PHOTO LINKS.

[Ylem]

You got it
Nice

[Lady Fraktor]

A nice capture

[Peter802]

Well Captured.

[Gordon]

Congratulations Jim on having your image selected as todays TSS APOD!

app.php/article/5-1-2020-tss-astrophoto ... of-the-day

[Makuser]

Hi Jim. The "X" is easily detected in your nice lunar image. You did a great job with this capture Jim, and congratulations on winning the TSS APOD Award today.

[jnelson]

Thank you all very much! I appreciate it! Still on the steep part of the learning curve especially with photo processing but enjoying the journey.

[Voyageur]

Very nice, and congratulations!

[helicon]

Nice catch. Sounds like this phenomenon is only very sporadically visible - great effort! And congrats on winning the APOD.

[AntennaGuy]

Very nice catch.
For a schedule of when to look next, see viewtopic.php?f=75&t=1009

[jnelson]

Thanks for the schedule. I’ll keep my eye out for the next opportunity to capture the “V” to go with the “X”.