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  • Shot this back in the spring and forgot it was sitting unprocessed on my computer until now. This photo has had the saturation increased to highlight the differences in the lunar soil, which are barely noticeable to the eye when viewed through larger telescopes (usually in Mare Serenitatis or Mare Imbrium for me, at least). Tan/orange indicates iron rich minerals, and blue indicates titanium rich minerals. Captured at early in the morning on March 29th, 2023.

    Places where I host my other images:

    Instagram | Flickr

    Equipment:

    • TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
    • Orion Sirius EQ-G
    • ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
    • Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
    • ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
    • Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
    • Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
    • Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
    • ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding
    • Moonlite Autofocuser

    Acquisition: (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C)

    • R - 1000 x 2.5ms
    • G - 1000 x 2.2ms
    • B - 1000 x 3.6ms

    Capture Software:

    • Captured using Sharpcap and N.I.N.A. for mount/filterwheel control

    Stacking:

    • Stacked the best 15% of frames in Autostakkert (autosharpened, 3X Drizzle)

    PixInsight Processing:

    • DynamicCrop
    • ChannelCombination to combine monochrome images into RGB image
    • ChannelMatch to align G and B colorchannels to red
    • ColorCalibration
    • HistogramTransformation (slight stretch, also applied to red stack)
    • LRGBCombination using red stack as luminance
    • CurvesTransformations to adjust lightness, contrast, colors, saturation, etc.
    • SCNR green (a little)> invert > SCNR (a lot) > invert
    • ColorSaturation to desaturatered color fringing around some of the craters
    • UnsharpMask for additional sharpening
    • LocalHistogramTransformation
    • MLT noise reduction
    • more curves
    • Annotation

  • Very cool. I was proud of myself for pointing a camera at the Milky Way for 15 seconds. This is a whole other level. 👍