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A selection of four images I took with my two main telescopes on the evening of the 24th March 2021 with The Moon at 78% waxing gibbous phase to the South in the constellation of Leo.First up below is a main disk taken with TEC140 refractor.  I shot RGB through those filters on my ASI174M camera and I took the luminance through a 7nm Ha filter.  My field of view with the TEC140 and this camera is only half the disk and so I have to take sequence runs, one for the north and the other for the south and then combine them in Photoshop.  Lunar Disk I then moved on to use my C925 SCT telescope again using the ASI174M in RGB mode.  I did not capture a specific luminance channel this time and just used RGB and made a pseudo-luminance.  The weather conditions were too windy to get…

I have owned my Celestron C925 SCT telescope for many years but have only ever used it for visual purposes. I have always preferred the use of refractors for imaging. However, I have started to want to get much greater detail in my lunar images, having been bitten by the lunar imaging bug. I had some significant issues getting the C925 properly collimated, accurate enough for imaging purposes, a story I discuss here. After successfully collimating the scope these are my first two pictures taken with The Moon quite low down in the East with some slight mistiness. Mare Nectaris Region Above is the best 15% of 5000 frames in each of Red, Green and Blue. I collected the data with Sharpcap with ASI174M camera with Baader RGB filters. I created the master R,G,B files with PlanetarySystem Stacker and then used PixInsight and Photoshop to develop. Copernicus Above is Copernicus…

The Moon on 25th January 2021 at 89% in Gemini. It was freezing cold, snow on the ground with reasonable skies and seeing conditions. The full disk below is the best 20% in each of the R,G and B filters out of 10000 frames. I used Planetary System Stacker software to process the raw .SER files from the camera and then used PixInsight and Photoshop for processing. I used my TEC140 refractor and ASI174M high speed camera with Baader RGB filters. I no longer capture a separate luminance channel and instead make a synthetic luminance from the RGB data and then sharpen that and use as a luminance layer in Photoshop. RGB Moon at 81%, 25 January 2021 For the two images below I used my Televue 2″ Powermate X2 in order to double the TEC140 telescope’s focal length to 1960mm. The processing and frame set is the same as…

After months and months of cloud, The Moon shone down on us in Nottinghamshire on the 23rd January from high up in the sky in Gemini (my daughter’s birthday!) It was at a phase of 74% waxing gibbous. I used my TEC140 scope, ASI174M camera and Baader RGB filters. The full disk image was with the telescope at its native focal length and with the two closer up views at the bottom I used a 2″ Televue Powermate x2 in front of the filter wheel/camera assembly. RGB Disk at 75% Waxing Gibbous Above is best 25% of 20000 frames in each of RGB. Copernicus and The Apennines After the full disk image I inserted the Televue 2″ x2 Powermate to get a more zoomed in view. Above is the Apennine Mountains and Copernicus crater to the left of centre. Best 15% of 5000 frames in LRGB. Clavius and Tycho Craters…

I had to get up early in the morning to get this picture of The Moon.  I set my alarm and got up at 05:00 which took considerable motivation, especially since it was -6C!   I don’t capture many last quarter and later moon pictures because the Moon is only ever visible in that phase early in the morning and working full time it is not easy to be getting up very early when you have to do lots of driving. However, conditions for astronomy in the UK have been exceptionally poor for the last six months of 2020 and I am desperate to be able to image anything at all! The Moon, LRGB TEC140 Refractor Technical Details The Moon was in Scorpio, low down to The South from my location, and seeing was average with the Moon at such a low altitude  Phase is 38% waning.Imaged from my back garden…