To The MOON !

The Moon doesn't get the respect it ought at times... it's brightness overwhelms the fainter "prettier" objects in the night sky. But it is there, beckoning to be paid some attention to. So last night, with high clouds pushing in I gave it some love.
First of all, an HDR image of it. HDR stands for "high dynamic range" photography. One takes a few under-exposed shots, some normal exposure shots and some over-exposed shots. Then a HDR program aligns and puts them all together. Of course, I pushed it beyond what one normally sees but this is HDR, you know.
DATA: Meade LX200GPS 8" telescope, Canon T3i camera. Prime focus. Post processed with Aurora HDR 2019 software.

Then I used the movie mode of the Canon camera, with its ability to zoom in on specific areas of the Moon to create some short movie clips. As you know, movies are nothing more than individual photos presented in rapid succession to create the illusion of movement.

Software can take those individual shots, find the sharpest ones and stack them for the best possible capture. Then another bit of software can sharpen it up even more!

There are times as the Sun's light moves across the Moon, that certain features stand out better than at other times. Last night the illusion was of an "X" on the terminator (edge) of the light/dark of the Moon.

Here it is up close!

Messier 13 Hercules globular star cluster

M 13

Three clear nights in a row! Messier 13, the Hercules globular star cluster.
Data: Meade LX200GPS 8", focal reducer, Canon T3i camera.
Imaging: Four 120sec subs stacked (total 8 minutes) with DSS, iso800

The Whirlpool Galaxy after hours of frustration

M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy

After 21 days of rain and clouds I was able to reopen the obs and get back to astro-imaging. However, I had to waste nearly 3 hours trying to figure out why my Meade LX200GPS 8" telescope would not accept commands from both Cartes du Ciel (Star Chart) and PHD2 (guiding program). Frustrating. By the time I got it figured out it was well past midnight. Part of this is the consequence of lack of use for 3 weeks, part due to GPS issues with the government resetting their GPS satellites. So what images I did get were not worthy of posting. Last night I went out again, expecting to begin imaging early... but again issues kept me from imaging for well over an hour. Finally I was able to capture M 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy shown here. I used a Meade focal reducer/field flattener but I was not pleased with the soft focus result (even though I did focus it precisely). Data: Single shot of 16 minutes, Canon T3i, 1600 iso, no cropping. Taken 6/3/2019 at 11:30 pm PDT.