Moon photo tonight

Finally managed to combine clear night with moon, charged batteries and
focusing technique!

so here is the result - http://www.sojomedia.com/moon/moon28-03-04.jpg after
some image processing to enhance the details - the original is he
http://www.sojomedia.com/moon/moon28-03-04_original.jpg - what is the blue
halo?

Image processing was a case of removing the blue halo, then setting up
several layers in photoshop with different levels - each highlighting a
brighter section, then using the eraser to reveal the best bits of each
layer, and a basic unsharp mask. The result certainly shows more detail, but
stops it looking quite so spherical..

taken with a canon a70 taped to the lens of 10x50 binoculars in turn taped
to an awful tripod and focused by connecting the camera through a video
player to an old TV so i could see the screen at a reasonable resolution -
Phew! a rather heath-robinson arrangement that took a good while to move out
onto the patio

I took loads of images tonight - might try stacking them but is it likely to
improve the image?

jeff

Impressive, especially the lack of clouds !

I wish I could work out a way of strapping my Canon A40 to my new Dob,
would be much easier to point and click and then go back to the PC to
work out what the £$£ it was I'd snapped !

i assume masking tape isn't an option?

It works very well for me, especially using binoculars as i can use the
other side as a finderscope - i'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to rig up
some kind of easily removable adapter - taped (or better to the camera,
but easily detachable from the scope, so you can aim/focus easily in between
shots.

"Dr DNA" wrote in message
...
Impressive, especially the lack of clouds !

I wish I could work out a way of strapping my Canon A40 to my new Dob,
would be much easier to point and click and then go back to the PC to
work out what the £$£ it was I'd snapped !

i assume masking tape isn't an option?

It works very well for me, especially using binoculars as i can use the
other side as a finderscope - i'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to rig up
some kind of easily removable adapter - taped (or better to the camera,
but easily detachable from the scope, so you can aim/focus easily in between
shots.

Do you focus in situ then ?

Using velcro springs to mind.

THis looks liek a good idea

http://www.cloudynights.com/astrophotography/canon.htm

yep - velcro could be good..

not sure what you mean by focus "in situ".. - here is what i do:

connect the camera to the binoculars, and aim using the second "scope"
plug everything in, so i see the view through the binos on the TV screen
I can then focus the binoculars (the camera is set to infinity focus, and
does not change) by looking at the TV screen - this is still quite
hit-and-miss, but a lot more accurate than before.. i tend to take a lot of
photos "around" the focus, as it is quite hard to focus exactly.
I also set the camera to 10s delay, so any shaking has stopped by the time
the photo is taken.



"Dr DNA" wrote in message
...

i assume masking tape isn't an option?

It works very well for me, especially using binoculars as i can use the
other side as a finderscope - i'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to rig up
some kind of easily removable adapter - taped (or better to the
camera,
but easily detachable from the scope, so you can aim/focus easily in
between
shots.

Do you focus in situ then ?

Using velcro springs to mind.