Thanks Wat, that it was so high up is why I found it so difficult to photograph.  So the full moon basically does the opposite of what the sun does during the same time of year.

About the eclipse, I noticed less color in the eclipse too (as a result of the recent volcanic eruption maybe?) but the top part of the moon was really bright and white- it looked like a crescent to me even during totality.

The Sept 2015 super moon eclipse was much more orange.

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post About the eclipse, I noticed less color in the eclipse too (as a result of the recent volcanic eruption maybe?) but the top part of the moon was really bright and white- it looked like a crescent to me even during totality.

I noticed that too.  In most eclipses the edge of the umbra is brighter and has a bluish-white tint to it, due to light passing through the ozone layer which absorbs redder wavelengths.  It's the same reason noctilucent clouds look electric blue.  Spaceweather.com has a blurb about that effect, which it usually does after a lunar eclipse, but the image they show is way over-saturated I think (perhaps to make it more obvious).

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post The Sept 2015 super moon eclipse was much more orange.

Yes, it definitely was, and also much darker, probably due to a layer of aerosols from the eruption of Mt. Calbuco in Chile earlier that year.  I had to use about 4x more exposure (with same settings otherwise) to capture it:



In that eclipse it was still twilight here when the Moon rose (having also just entered totality) and for several minutes after it rose it was completely invisible.

Wow thats spectacular, Wat!  What mountain is that in the foreground?

I found more on that object that struck the moon during the eclipse

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/ ... se/123093/

A-L-E-X wrote:

Source of the post Wow thats spectacular, Wat!  What mountain is that in the foreground?

Thanks.  The mountain is Koma Kulshan, a 3286 meter stratovolcano.
I look forward to LRO finding and getting an image of the new crater on the Moon.

Bright fireball last night seen in northern Scandiavia:



The video shows that it split it two (also reported by many eye witnesses).

It fell over Jokkmokk in Sweden.  The entry speed was 22 km/s and it faded 37 km above ground.  Everything or almost everything was vaporised, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some small fragments made it to the ground.  This is a quite inaccessible area, though.


Typical asteroid belt object:

Anyone capture the amazing conjunction last night?

https://twitter.com/hashtag/Jupiter?src ... 6522539008

Welp didn't realize this existed on the forums, honestly should have expected it.

Here's some moon pics i took two months ago


And then yesterday with a slightly different setup (and less sharpening)


I've only started doing astrophoto recently. Tried some galaxies but they weren't so great so I'm still working on those. Meanwhile I'm still waiting for fall to come so I can image some nebulae.

Those are seriously impressive!  I feel like these could be photos from an Apollo mission.  The focus and atmospheric turbulence look perfect on the second shot, which supports the sharpening.  

Wow what equipment did you use?

A-L-E-X wrote:

Wow what equipment did you use?

Some old equipment I got when I was 12 (Nexstar 6SE). I've since switched out the less-than-ideal mount, but I am still stuck with the scope and an even older camera (450D). 

Some more recent DSO attempts. Forgive me for the noise and aberrations, camera doesn't perform well at temperatures around 25-30C and scope is sub-optimal for such large targets. Needed a focal reducer to fit everything in nicely (m 16 and m 8 particularly. Also diffuse objects aren't meant to be shot with 1500mm focal length.) Also shooting under bortle scale 8 skies (recently upgraded from 7 )

M 27
M 16

m 8

Crescent nebula

Those are amazing Phunnie

Phunnie wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Wow what equipment did you use?

Some old equipment I got when I was 12 (Nexstar 6SE). I've since switched out the less-than-ideal mount, but I am still stuck with the scope and an even older camera (450D). 

Some more recent DSO attempts. Forgive me for the noise and aberrations, camera doesn't perform well at temperatures around 25-30C and scope is sub-optimal for such large targets. Needed a focal reducer to fit everything in nicely (m 16 and m 8 particularly. Also diffuse objects aren't meant to be shot with 1500mm focal length.) Also shooting under bortle scale 8 skies (recently upgraded from 7 )

M 27

► Show Spoiler

M 16

► Show Spoiler

m 8

► Show Spoiler

Crescent nebula

► Show Spoiler

I have the 8 SE but I find it so heavy to lug around that I haven't been using it much but this is encouraging me to try.  My camera is the Olympus E-PL6, it's very light and a good match for the mount.  I wonder if it would achieve similar results?  Do you have the F/6.3 reducer/corrector too? I have that also.  Also got a lot of light pollution here on Long Island

A-L-E-X wrote:

Phunnie wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Wow what equipment did you use?

Some old equipment I got when I was 12 (Nexstar 6SE). I've since switched out the less-than-ideal mount, but I am still stuck with the scope and an even older camera (450D). 

Some more recent DSO attempts. Forgive me for the noise and aberrations, camera doesn't perform well at temperatures around 25-30C and scope is sub-optimal for such large targets. Needed a focal reducer to fit everything in nicely (m 16 and m 8 particularly. Also diffuse objects aren't meant to be shot with 1500mm focal length.) Also shooting under bortle scale 8 skies (recently upgraded from 7 )

M 27

► Show Spoiler

M 16

► Show Spoiler

m 8

► Show Spoiler

Crescent nebula

► Show Spoiler

I have the 8 SE but I find it so heavy to lug around that I haven't been using it much but this is encouraging me to try.  My camera is the Olympus E-PL6, it's very light and a good match for the mount.  I wonder if it would achieve similar results?  Do you have the F/6.3 reducer/corrector too? I have that also.  Also got a lot of light pollution here on Long Island

The mount that comes with the nexstar is nowhere near well suited for long exposure DSO astrophotography unfortunately. Not only is it alt-az, it also tracks very poorly making anything over 30 seconds very difficult to impossible. The shots above were with an EQ6-R, a very good, but also very expensive equatorial mount. I also modified my camera and removed the stock IR filter as it blocked most of the H-alpha emissions of nebulae. Slapped on a light pollution filter that would block out a good portion of sky glow while simultaneously allowing H-alpha, OIII and SII wavelengths to travel through. Nowhere near as good as narrowband imaging, but it does a decently good job for the time being until I save up enough money to buy a new scope, a new monochrome cooled camera and filters.

Also yes I have a f/6.3 reducer. You could for sure get similar results on the moon with enough practice and attempts. DSO's will require a better mount though.

Thanks- I have light pollution filters also but got the wrong size unfortunately- I have eyepiece size O3, UHC and Imaging filters- all are 1.25"   What size did you get?

I also have software that is supposed to combat light pollution- something called Sequator (it's free) as well as DSS,  It does okay for imaging of the constellations and brighter nebulae.  My level of light pollution is such that anything more than 30 seconds at f/2.8 at 14mm on even a kit lens makes the sky too bright and obscures stars.

Does anyone know what the minimum effective focal length needed is to show separation of Saturn from its rings in an image?  I have an HS50 camera which is a superzoom and have seen images from others that show the separation clearly- and even with prior models in the series which had smaller zooms.  I was just wondering what the minimum effective focal length needed to achieve this separation was.

Here are some images of it taken with superzoom cameras.

https://www.deviantart.com/maxarceus/art/Space-Compilation-FujiFilm-Finepix-HS50-EXR-602813253

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/38016759

https://4.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~forums/61043700/1bbbd80339d5472c969388c6df8a9ef1

http://letkeman.net/Photos/albums/night ... n_hs25.jpg

http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com/2012/05 ... y-you.html

http://kimletkeman.blogspot.com/2013/03 ... art-8.html

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58064290?image=0

https://1.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~fo ... ec30b33fdc

https://4.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~fo ... ec2b3541cf

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58064290

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/58063100

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4303376

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4026054

https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/E~fo ... 55b6d5629d