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.
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:
Stacking:
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. 👍