Daytime waxing gibbous moon (21 April 2021)
This photograph of the waxing gibbous moon is my 14-month year old son’s first astrophotograph… kind of! He calls the telescope ‘Te’ and he’s fascinated by it. He loves to play with the SynScan GOTO handset by pressing all its buttons, and to swing the balanced telescope in right ascension when the clutches are off (under very very careful supervision)! And he also loves the moon. ‘Moon’ was in fact one of his first words, and when you say it to him, he looks straight up and all around the sky trying to find it. This bodes very well for a future shared passion!
So at 6pm on 21 April 2021, just before his evening meal, and just after I’d set up for a night observing the Iris Nebula, we went out and had a quick look at the moon in detail. He stared at the screen for a minute or so with the concentration evident on his face, and then started bashing the keyboard (he loves the keyboard)! I recorded the moment with about 500 frames, and stacked them later with a little editing in Photoshop for colour balance, brightness and contrast, and sharpness. This is the result.
Frames
- Best 25% of 485× 10-ms frames (gain 100)
- Full use of calibration frames (darks, flats and dark flats)
Equipment
- Explore Scientific ED 102 mm Apo f/7 refractor
- Sky-Watcher EQ6-R PRO SynScan GOTO equatorial mount
- Altair Hypercam 294C PRO colour fan-cooled camera
Software
- Sharpcap
- PIPP (Planetary Imaging Preprocessor)
- AutoStakkert!
- Photoshop
