TheSkySearchers

Did anyone catch the Lunar X today?

This is a first for me and it nearly didn't happen. There was intermittent cloud after sunset. The X was due at 23:45. The Moon was photogenically sitting right next to the Pleiades tonight but my field of view is too narrow to capture both targets together. As the due time got close the clouds got thicker! I was looping 30 second exposures just to help keep on target. Then with perfect timing the clouds cleared, I reduced the exposure to 0.001 seconds and caught a few of these:

Single frame, masked stretch, curves adjustment and sharpened in PixInsight.



Graeme

great catch , thx .
very cloudy here these days.

Outstanding catch Graeme!

Nicely done...I captured my first Lunar X by accident

Yours is much nicer though.

I hadn't heard of it before, so I searched your photo for a while, looking for the "X" that you were talking about.
Then suddenly it jumped out at me - cool!
Thanks

Congratulations Graeme!

Well done on that capture Graeme.

Graeme, that is an awesome shot, good for you on the timing and cloud break! I've caught the lunar V a few times over the years, but never the X. Well done!

All the best,

Congrats on the "X" capture! I've seen it a few times but not sure I've ever photographed it. You mention counting down the time till it appears, I'm curious, how long does the "X" appear?

Cheers Greg.

Earlier in the evening I selected the Moon in Stellarium and clicked fast forward. At 23:00 the X started to come into view, at 23:45 it shows complete. At 01:00 it starts to loose its shape.

If you change the Stellarium date to the 16th and set the time to just before 23:00 you'll see what I mean.

Graeme

Nice catch Graeme

Wow, great catch and image, both are very plain to see. I'm heartened to see that the time on my spreadsheet seems to have worked. Thanks for validating that.

Cheers,