# Stacked Moon



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

Decided to try a stacked image of the moon. This one is 30 images stacked with PS using a median stacking option to get rid of the noise and artifacts.










Came out pretty good for a first attempt. I've been reading about a different way of minimizing the atmospheric turbulence to get the sharpest shots. You set your camera for video recording and let it go for 10-15 minutes convert the frames to images then there are software packages out there to take those images select the sharpest ones and stack those. Its supposed to be the best way for moon and planet shots. Kinda a brute force approach but in theory it should be very good since there are almost always nice clear conditions happening all the time for varying periods. So grabbing as many images as possible over a longer period should produce more keepers for the stack. Can't wait to get that tracker. Hoping I can have it here before the Milky Way goes out of sight for the winter.

Griz


----------



## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

Great shot there! I would be concerned with the video approach because you typically use such a small portion of the sensors available pixels shooting video (unless it is 4K video) which means a big loss in detail resolution when you start to go big with the images.


----------



## stargazer (May 24, 2004)

I agree, really nice., Great detail.


----------



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*True could be a problem*

Hadn't thought about that but you are right. When I had my big scope I was always having to use binning to get the pixel dimensions right to get the detail. And without a telescope to make the image large and spread it out over the greatest number of pixels it could be a problem. I've seen some pretty decent images though. But I'm not sure what kind of camera they were using on the ones I've seen. I'm super impressed with the astro capabilities of a DLSR though. Having had the big stuff and knowing how hard it is to get decent images its almost too easy with the DLSR. So I'm a happy camper cause after having to sell all my stuff I didn't think I'd ever be able to get back into it. I'll have a tracking mount soon and I picked up a copy of Backyard EOS to use to control the stuff. Full width half maximum focusing is much easier than trying to do it by eyeball. And by watching it a little while you can tell if the seeing is too bad to stay out without spending a lot of time taking images only to find out they are all bad. Believe me I've had my fill of those nights  I was going to buy a Starguider tracker but the other day I found a new one that is not out in the US yet but is in the rest of the world. Called a Star Adventurer it has capabilities for astro and also motorized panning for terrestrial shots. Nice big gears beefy construction and quite configurable. You can mount a scope camera or binos. Comes in three kits. The bare bones unit the photo kit and the astro kit. If you have a sturdy video head you can get by with the bare bones unit. You need a way to elevate the base to point at Polaris. The photo kit comes with a equatorial base and dovetail to mount a ball head. I think I'm going to get the full astro kid. A better mount for the camera and I'd like to get another Borg/Hutech refractor. Had a f10 and f5 and they are excellent for doing planets and nebula. This is a link to the Star Adventurer.

http://ca.skywatcher.com/_english/02_mounts/02_detail.php?sid=68

They also make a couple of other mounts suitable for camera work.

http://ca.skywatcher.com/_english/02_mounts/02_detail.php?sid=63

If I was new at this kind of stuff I'd probably get the all view since it has go-to and will save you a lot of time. Although you won't get as good of guiding as you will with the star adventurer since the all view is alt/az. Maybe the computer guidance has gotten better but the first motorized mount I had was alt/az and having to run 2 motors instead of one made the time I could get decent guided shots much shorter than when I bought the Losmandy GM-8 equatorial. Now that is a sweet mount. The sky is excellent where I live. The Milky Way is prominent so I expect to get some decent shots. There is an old slab behind my house that will be perfect to use. I want to get familiar with the mount and figure out how to use it before going to Colorado in Oct. Some sky shots in RMNP would be awesome. Gotta figure out how to superimpose the sky scene over a non blurred image of the mountains in PS but I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials on that stuff out there. So with all the racing at COTA coming up and this project I should be a busy beaver this fall.

Griz


----------



## Prof. Salt (May 6, 2014)

I use Photoshop but haven't yet tried this; definitely need to read up on stacking. Your final product turned out great!


----------



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Best program for stacking*

There is a free program called registax that is good for planets and the moon. I'm having problems getting it to run on my machine for the new version but the version 5 works great. I used to use that when I had my observatory. For deep sky stacking there is another free program called deep sky stacker. I did one the otner night with 20 images at .6 seconds on a 40mm lens. Dim but the stars were perfect.

And it looks like I'm going to change my mind again on a tracker. Just found out Losmandy makes one. Essentially half of a GM-8 mount. I know that puppy will be dead on accurate so even though its gonna hurt the pocket a bit I'm going with that one. Losmandy makes rigging for pro video shoots. All kinds of stuff. The astro mounts were a sideline thing for them. Excellent quality and made here.

http://www.losmandy.com/starlapse.html

You can buy the dec axis later if you want a GM-8  I didn't know how good I had it with the GM-8. Wanted a larger OTA and the GM-8 wouldn't handle it so I sold it. The Celestron nexstar 11 with its fork mount wasn't nearly as accurate as the Losmandy.

Stacking in Photoshop is dead easy. Got to Files Scripts and load images into stack to get them started. There are a couple of checkboxes for align and create smart object on that panel. I just checked those to get my shot.

Griz


----------



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

Here is a link to the way to use canon dlsr's for planetary imaging getting as close to 1:1 pixel at full resolution of the camera. Pretty informative page.

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/EQ_TESTS/Canon_One_To_One_Pixel_Resolution.HTM

I think this is what pocketfisherman was getting at in his post.

Griz


----------

