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[starbux]

Last night (Sunday) had some very steady seeing. My "new" camera (Nikon Coolpix 5000) has the ability to take RAW file format images so I decided to give it a shot. Since it was a work night I decided to go minimalist and set up my 8" dob to take the pics with, rather than the LX200. I used a 15mm GSO SuperView and a 3x barlow (giving me the ridiculously high magnification of 731x when you factor in the 3x zoom on the camera) but it worked, at least for some given the steadiness of the seeing.

RAW format rocks! You can basically redefine the settings that the image was taken (except for iso) after the fact, change the exposure, clean up noise, clean up chromatic aberration (important since this camera has some) and other niceties.


Grimaldi and Riccoli. You can just see the Grimaldi dome. Riccoli shows some of its rilles on its floor.


Scanning the terminator, Bailly dominates the scene that evening. Pity the libration wasn't better, but seeing was nonetheless excellent.


Schickard and friends. Lots of small craterlets on the floor of Schickard.


Dark floored Cruger and nearby Sirsalis Rille (fine line).

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Malcolm,

What great and fantastic lunar shots!

The clarity and detail are reminiscent of an Apollo orbit. No blur, shake or really any other detractions. And out of a dob too!

I enjoy kicking up ridiculous magnification just to see what we can get away with. I remember Chicago Astronomer Bill and I just went wild and started to stack single digit mm eyepieces and barlows on his 10" dob...had a hell of a good time... ;D

Now, I expect some real nice shots when you do the same with your LX200!

Thanks for the great shots.

[starbux]

Reminiscent of an Apollo orbit? Hmm. Maybe the moon hoaxers are on to something. Maybe NASA faked the orbit shots with hi-resolution telescopic image captures?

JUST KIDDING!

Single shots of the moon like these may not turn out any better in the LX200, given that it has the same aperture. Much of the clarity had to do with seeing and getting a shot at just the right moment (I now have a remote release cable so no problem with shake). These 4 pics were the best out of maybe thirty that I took that night.

However, I don't have to work as much to precisely center the feature I want with the LX200, and I can do video imaging once I've found the optimal setting I hope. I have attempted some shots of the moon previously this week using standard jpeg and the Qucktime video mode in the camera. Seeing wasn't as good as this night was. Single snapshots were relatively mediocre (though I guess that is in the eye of the beholder) Previous attempts at video imaging gave me results that were dim and noisy, considerably worse than in the Canon A510. I have managed to up the brightness in the video by modifying some of the camera's settings, and did some test runs on the moon thru the dob that look a little more promising. Don't know if they'll be anywhere as good as the RAWs though.

Now I'm still wondering how kicking up the magnification this way still managed to get the sharp results that I did (yes, I used unsharp mask in Photoshop, but that only goes so far). I've likely maxed out the scope's resolution ability (as far as seeing goes), but perhaps the camera's own resolution (at RAW it is maxed out) keeps the image from degrading at magnifications above the scope's theoretical limits. If I discount the camera's own 3x zoom then the actual magnification the the scope alone was dealing with was only 243x --- well within the scope's theoretical limits.