It's not made of cheese

[JemC]

Hi

I took this one around the 18th Sept,
this was taken with my Canon 600d, iso100, 1/80th sec, attached to ST120 telescope, i think it was somewhere in the region of 20 images taken and stacked together with a little processing done in PS cc2015

[Wavelength]

WOW, a celestial Pumkin !!!!

[Jimr1961]

Amazing! Makes one wish they had a few K to spend on a telescope.

[NorthernFocus]

Nice detail. What is the purpose of the stacking?

[Dave Humphries]

By far this is one of the better attempts I have seen James,

My major thought is that the result is some 1/2 - 2/3 stop dimmer than it needs to be.

Cheers, Dave

[madcrow]

Great image and detail. + 1 for Dave

[JemC]

Nice detail. What is the purpose of the stacking?

Hi Dan

Ha, Ha, This should be fun, me trying to explain something technical,
1st off let me just say that this is my interpretation of it or at least how my brain works it out, i may be totally wrong but you have asked, so i will try my best to answer,

Have you ever looked down a long road on a hot summers day and in the distance you can see the heat haze coming up from the road making it look all shimmering,

when you look through a telescope at the moon or other planets you get the same or similar effect due to the movement of air between you and the moon (atmospheric effect)
there are other things that can cause it but i believe this is the main one, and it gives the impression that the moon is bobbing about,as a result of this if you where to take a single image
of the moon there is a very good chance that it will not all be in focus, it may not be far off but small parts would likely be out of focus or soft due to the atmospheric effect so
to combat this you take a series of images in succession where hopefully you can capture the small areas that were out of focus or soft,in focus,

Once you have all your images you then run them through some software programs to stack them all together, (there are various ones around and most are free to download) after which
you can then process the final image bringing out far more detail than just a single image, (a little like focus stacking only you don't alter your focus point)

hope you were able to follow this explanation,

Regards

[JemC]

Amazing! Makes one wish they had a few K to spend on a telescope.

Hi Jim
Thanks for your comment, appreciate it,

But can i just say you really don't need a few k, yes some people do spend vast amounts on their astronomy equipment but you would be surprised at what a modest amount can do,

the equipment i used to take that image (excluding the DSLR) cost me no more £300, which at todays rate is somewhere around 370 USD,

Regards

[mknittle]

Hi Dan

Ha, Ha, This should be fun, me trying to explain something technical,
1st off let me just say that this is my interpretation of it or at least how my brain works it out, i may be totally wrong but you have asked, so i will try my best to answer,

Have you ever looked down a long road on a hot summers day and in the distance you can see the heat haze coming up from the road making it look all shimmering,

when you look through a telescope at the moon or other planets you get the same or similar effect due to the movement of air between you and the moon (atmospheric effect)
there are other things that can cause it but i believe this is the main one, and it gives the impression that the moon is bobbing about,as a result of this if you where to take a single image
of the moon there is a very good chance that it will not all be in focus, it may not be far off but small parts would likely be out of focus or soft due to the atmospheric effect so
to combat this you take a series of images in succession where hopefully you can capture the small areas that were out of focus or soft,in focus,

Once you have all your images you then run them through some software programs to stack them all together, (there are various ones around and most are free to download) after which
you can then process the final image bringing out far more detail than just a single image, (a little like focus stacking only you don't alter your focus point)

hope you were able to follow this explanation,

Regards

Very good explanation James.

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the explanation.