Moon - Waxing Gibbous 13 Jun 2011

[CepiauCtambaguzChluub]

Single image 

[redzuan]

good attempt. bleh share sket  setting dan setup yg digunakan?

tapi nampak byk areas overexpose dan jd putih bersih tanpa texture (mungkin jg sbb saya tgk dari handphone je)... cara mudah utk nk tahu overexpose atau tidak, tgk histogram dan pastikan graf tidak melepasi bahagian kanan graf (maximum). ni tgk time shoot so sempat nk ubah setting. digital sgt mudah.

satu cara lg, guna spot metering pada kamera dan pastikan exposure berada pada -0.7 hingga -0.3.

selamat mencuba dan kongsi hasil anda kembali disini!

[mymoon]

Single image 

could do with black point adjustment.

In Photoshop

click color sampler tool>set to 5X5 average

click onto any of the Mare area (the dark patch of the moon)

Watch the INFO Palette

On mine it reads #1 R: 160
                                       G: 173
                                       B: 171

in Photoshop 

Image>Ajustments>Levels>Channel R

set R point to say 100 on the INFO Pallette by moving Black Triangle to the right. Don't Click OK yet

 repeat for Channel G and Channel  B and Click OK

Finish by Image>Adjustments>Curves>Channel RGB>drag center of curve to the right to taste. Click OK.

Repost the reprocessed picture here.


cheers

[CepiauCtambaguzChluub]

Assalamualaikum Sir. Redzuan: Ni setting tuk foto bulan berkenaan (just for sharing) Camera Info: 1/80s,f/8.0,ISO:100

Thanks for the previous tips & info.

[CepiauCtambaguzChluub]

[shahgazer]

Asw.

Saya telah splitkan pos thread ini kepada tajuk baru supaya lebih relevan dan tidak terconfuse dgn yg asal. Harap maklum.

[redzuan]

I saw that the first picture is slightly sharper. maybe the F/18 is making it worse instead... So I downloaded it and did some levels & grayscale adjustments and got this.



The next step that u might want to explore is stacking. it brings out a lot of details that are otherwise destroyed in processing.

[CepiauCtambaguzChluub]

Assalamualaikum Sir Redzuan... yup..after the processing you have done the moon looks more in detail. Nice work. One more thing, could you assist me in detail on how to shoot and stack moon photo. This is due to the movement of the the moon in every few sec and it seems quite immposibble for me..... to imagine how stacking method can be applied. Please do assist me in this matter. Thanking you in anticipation.

regards

cepiau&ctambaguz.

[Alfishahrin]

Assalamualaikum Sir Redzuan... yup..after the processing you have done the moon looks more in detail. Nice work. One more thing, could you assist me in detail on how to shoot and stack moon photo. This is due to the movement of the the moon in every few sec and it seems immposibble for me to imagine how stacking method can be applied. Please do assist me in this matter. Thanking you in anticipation.

reagerds

cepiau&ctambaguz.

ape2 pon..shoot yg menarik..tahniah

[redzuan]

What I did in photoshop was simply some conversion to grayscale since the moon looks great in black & white. Then adjusted the Levels so that it adds contrast and easier on the eyes to see. No sharpening was done on the photo at all. MyMoon's steps are also quite easy to follow once you know where they are.

I would suggest you use the first setting that you used 1/80s,f/8.0,ISO:100, but with a slightly faster shutter speed of about 1/125-1/200s. Push the ISO up a little bit if necessary. This is to avoid trailing (smearing) of the moon in the images.

Using these settings, the capture the moon in High Speed Continuous shots. Take not less than 100 photos of the moon. With the 50D, this will take around 17-20 seconds, also depending on your card's speed.  This must be done non stop considering your setup is non-tracking.

Transfer all the files to a folder in the computer.

Stacking
Download and install Registax.

1. Open Registax.

2. Click on the "Select" button on the top left corner. Then, select all the moon images to be processed.

3. Next, select an alignment point or feature on the moon that is most prominent and easy to distinguish by clicking on the moon image. On the left menu bar, you can select the "AlignBox Size" to be 256 or bigger. this will let Registax know that your moon drift will be inside this box (I am assuming here coz thats what I see).

4. You are now ready to align your images. On the top Left corner, there are 2 buttons "Align" & "Limit". Click on "Align" and let Registax do its job.

5. When this is done, the "Limit" button will now light up. Click on "Limit"

6. Depending on the version of Registax, this might not apply to the new Registax 6. This one is based on Registax 5 that I am still using.  After limiting, you should now end up on the Optimize and Stack. Simply click  Optimize and Stack and again, let Registax do its job.

7. When Registax is done stacking, it will go straight to Wavelet processing. This is the true power of Registax. On the Wavelet menu on the left, you should now see a few rulers, I think there are 6. The top ruler number 1 is the strongest sharpening, and less power as we go down the bottom. Adjust these rulers according to your preference.

The test portion to see the effect of each slider is seen in a small 250x250 pixel window in the image.
To process the entire image, simply click "Do All" button on the top menu of wavelet and the image will be processed.

8. "Save Image".

9. Adjust Levels, Curves and Sharpening in Photoshop. - This is covered in Gem Island's topic here.

10. Share your results here.

p/s: you might want to learn steps 9 for individual images to begin with. And to make your lens even more useful, get a teleconverter. And anyone who might want to assist in screenshots, are more than welcome. This can later be used as a guide in the future. We'll have a Tutorial section of FalakOnline dedicated to tips and tricks of astrophotography.

[haldafluke]

3. Next, select an alignment point or feature on the moon that is most prominent and easy to distinguish by clicking on the moon image. On the left menu bar, you can select the "AlignBox Size" to be 256 or bigger. this will let Registax know that your moon drift will be inside this box (I am assuming here coz thats what I see).

Bro Redzuan,

My attempt with Registax 6 now resulting with them crashed on my lappy.   It could be the jpegs being too big of a size. 7MB a piece is not too big, kan?

Am resizing the shots now, and try to stack them but the final result from stacking does not properly aligned all of the images selected. Could this be due to the AlignBox Size being too small, OR lack of alignment points on them. Am trying to work on it now.

The other soklan is, will Registax work in such of way like a photostitch software, say if I were gonna shoot the top half of the moon, and later bottom half of it. Say if I have 100shots of each, will Registax be able to "stack & stitch" this?

Trime Kaseh daun keladi,
Nanti ada soklan saya tanya lagi.

[redzuan]

Crashed? try getting Registax 5 instead. That might help. And also dont let the image drift too far between the frames. Making the alignbox bigger does help Registax to find this easier. Registax 6 has a funny was of choosing alignment points and you can reduce the numbers (>10) to probably avoid it from crashing.

Most importantly, dont let the image/object drift too far apart between the first shot and the last. If it does, you might want to align them (crop in Photoshop) so that they all somewhat are aligned closely.

Last but not least, Registax does not do stitching. that is done later in photoshop with the already stacked images to create a mosaic.

Hope this helps.

[shahgazer]

Halda,

If i may chip in...

I used Registax 6 for my moon mosaic, and it didn't crash. However, at times, the final stacked image has this wierd looking triangle and octagon shape at some area. dunno why.

So, i used Registax 5.1 instead and everything is fine.

My moon mosaic is from 12 different video file

So, what i did ..

1. Stacked each video file as usual.
2. The final stacked image is save as TIF. (i didnot do any wavelet adjustment).
3. Now i open the final 12 individual tif files in PS, and use photomerge .
4. The merge image is then open back in Registax for wavelet adjustment.
5. the rest are in PS..

Lucky me, this time the sky condition is 'stable' enough so that each 12 video files have somewhat 'similar' shades, brightness etc. So i guess PS CS3 doesn't complain much about it.

[redzuan]

It seems Registax 5 is still relevant and a good solution to try and solve your problem.

Rasanya dia jadi shades of triangles tu sbb dari selection of alignment points. Saya perasan ia terjadi dalam Registax 5 apabila kita memilih >1 alignment points untuk processing. Ia kemudian membahagikan imej tersebut berdasarkan lokasi alignment points yang kita pilih. Saya pasti anda menggunakan satu alignment point dalam Registax 5.1 anda untuk stacking bulan...

Untuk Registax 6, ia mungkin berlaku atas sebab yang sama dimana ia memilih beberapa alignment point secara automatic, by default.

However, I don't see this problem when either Mr Universe or mymoon is using it... I wonder why...

[mymoon]

my name is mentioned.

Unlike the earlier registax (version 2.1.14.0) where my interventions are required in many places , for Registax 6,  I choose auto everything for the avi data processing.

Alhamdullilah, so far the programme don't bomb and the results are satisfactory.

And the processing fly at supersonic speed on my desktop Pentium Duo-core running windows XP Pro with 3GB RAM.

cheers