Near First Quarter Moon --- well, half of it!

 While the Moon hinders deep sky astrophotography it presents its own great beauty.

I used a method called by some "lucky imaging" to get the greatest detail the night would offer. Instead of taking a single shot or even multiple shots of different parts of the Moon, "lucky" imaging uses the camera in the video mode to take hundreds of frames. Why? Because the Earth's atmosphere "shimmers", much like the illusion created by heat waves on straight highway asphalt on a hot day. There are very brief moments when the image of the Moon is clear. So I use a computer program that seeks out the best frames and stacks them to result in the sharpest image possible (under the circumstances). Since the video captures only a small part of the Moon, I had to take a number of videos, sweeping the telescope back and forth across the face of the Moon.

In this case, I combined all the final images into one, which, is FAR more detailed than any single shot by any normal camera. I was unable to do the entire Moon tonight because high, thin clouds came in and made finishing this project impossible.

However, I was pleased with what I did capture and am looking forward to trying again!

NOTE: To view a LARGER image of any photo on this blog follow these three basic steps:

1. Click on the photo. This will open a view of the photo... but not necessarily the largest, close-up view. Note: If the photo is quite large it may take a little while for it to display.

2. To view it even larger now, right click on that photo and select "Open image in new tab". Depending on the actual size of the image it may take longer to display the image.

3. To progressively enlarge the image with Windows: use CONTROL and + for larger view and CONTROL and - to reduce the size of the image. OR with a Mac: use COMMAND and + to progressively enlarge the image OR COMMAND and - to reduce the size of the image.