Ten Day Old Moon

Object Details:

Visual magnitude:   -10.8              Apparent size:    29.9′
Diameter:   3475 km.                   Distance:   1.33 light seconds

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When the Moon is high and bright, I am sometimes still tempted to do some home imaging, if the sky is clear. I will usually take a video of the Moon while I wait for full darkness.

This is what I got after processing 500 video frames recorded last Thursday, with a ten day old Moon. It came out with a rather pinkish colour this time, possibly due to bushfire smoke or my still evolving photographic skills, I can’t be sure which.

I didn’t like the pink though, so I faded most of it out.

One thing noticeable in the image is the number of white ejecta rays emanating from some of the larger craters. They show up in the highland areas but contrast especially well in the darker maria areas.

Some of the craters are two billion years old – and so – by implication – is the associated ejecta. That’s a long time for debris to be lying around. I wonder how long the Apollo astronauts footprints will remain on the surface. Possibly a lot longer than the lifetime of human civilisation!

The Lunar magnitude of -10.8 is about seven magnitudes brighter than the magnitude -4 Venus I saw low in the West. That’s about 650 times brighter. It’s left me wondering about the magnitude of that wretched new LED street light they recently installed to thwart my astronomy activities. A few magnitudes more than a full Moon, I reckon. 😨 

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End of Blog

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Technical stuff:

Image & Processing:

Date:  2019-11-07 Exposure:   500 x 0.045138 sec Gain:   0	Location:  outer suburban Conditions:  clear
Image acquisition:  SharpCap video. Method: best 50% of 500 frames	Stacked: Autostakkert Image post-processing:  GIMP. Cropping: yes

Gear:

Telescope:	SkyWatcher Esprit	Type:	120 triplet refractor
Focal:	840 mm F/7	Mount:	SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro
Camera:	ZWO ASI 071 MC Pro	Type:	CMOS 28.4mm 16 Mpx
Optical aids:	Flattener: Y; filter: LP	Guiding:	No

Geek Log:

[ZWO ASI071MC Pro] Debayer Preview=On Pan=0 Tilt=0 Output Format=SER file (*.ser) Binning=1 Capture Area=4944×3284 Colour Space=RAW16 Hardware Binning=Off Turbo USB=40 Flip=None Frame Rate Limit=8 fps Gain=0 Exposure=0.045138 Timestamp Frames=Off White Bal (B)=50 White Bal (R)=53 Brightness=16 Temperature=-5.3 Cooler Power=100

Target Temperature=-10 Cooler=On Auto Exp Max Gain=300 Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000 Auto Exp Target Brightness=100 Mono Bin=Off Anti Dew Heater=On Banding Threshold=35 Banding Suppression=0 Apply Flat=None Subtract Dark=None #Black Point Display Black Point=0 #MidTone Point Display MidTone Point=0.5 #White Point Display White Point=1 TimeStamp=2019-11-07T10:20:46.4352838Z SharpCapVersion=3.2.6086.0

 

Images © Roger Powell

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