Collateral Software
A blog by fschuindt

Mak90 DSLR video stack first attempt: 80% Moon

Spent the night trying multiple combinations of ways to photograph the Moon. A mix between my Meade ETX90 (1250mm f/13.8), a Olympus film lens (300mm f/4.5), a Canon EOS 600D and a modified Logitech C270 webcam. Also experimented between recording videos and taking pictures.

My first impressions:

  • The 300mm lens with a wide ocular can reveal M42 by eye, odd.
  • The Moon is almost the entire frame of the C270 cam with the 300mm lens.
  • The C270 cam is a good camera for surface images of the Moon with the ETX90. Haven’t tried with barlows.
  • The C270 cam reveals chromatic aberration on the 300mm lens.
  • ETX90 90° adapter is wobbling, this may be the reason for the partially-out-of-focus feeling I’m getting when using the DSLR due to weight.
  • DSLR video seems to be the way to go instead of multiple exposures. Still need to try INDI the live-video feature with the DSLR.

Author: Fernando Schuindt
License: CC BY 4.0
Camera: Canon EOS 600D
Lens/Telescope: Meade ETX 90 (OTA-only) (90mm aperture, 1250mm focal length, f/13.88, Maksutov-Cassegrain)
Composition: 3’ 19” of DSLR video 30fps, ISO200, 1920x1080, .MOV 818MB file.
Processing: Converted video into 4.777 .tif frames by PIPP, stacked with RegiStax 6, Photoshop: auto color, brightnes/contrast, curve adjustments, noise reduction, hue/saturation, camera raw filter, background crop, flip canvas vertical.
Location Name: Aracaju - Sergipe, Brazil
Bortle Scale: 7
Location Aprox. Coordinates: 10°58’31.0”S 37°04’26.0”W
Timestamp (Local Time): 11-25-2020 20:04:42
Timezone: UTC-3 (No daylight saving time)
Outdoor temp.: 25° C
Outdoor humidity: 94%
Theme: 80% Moon
Other Gear: Meade LX85 GEM unguided (Two-star alignment).
Backup Images (On Google Photos): https://photos.app.goo.gl/5cPTxMpar66NPvgg8

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