On March, 24th the young moon was visible in the western sky. The clear air provided a good opportunity to capture the dark side of the moon which is actually illuminated by the earth which is big and bright in the lunar sky.
The moon is always a very regarding target. Even though the slow frame rate of the QHY5 (3FPS!) and the missing IR-Cut Filter do degrade the quality of the final image, some nice detail is visible in this mosaic of three individual avi files. 100 frames out of 400 were used for every frame.
The trio of Theophilus, Cyrillus und Catharina craters at upper left and the Ariadaeus Rille at lower right are prominent features visible in this image. On the floor of the Mare tranquillitatis at lower left some subtle mare ridges are vsible.
Tonight the western horizon is dazzlingly beautiful as the Moon, Venus and Mars shine brillantly in the clear air near the horizon.
With temperatures below freezing and a strong cold wind biting into the flesh of my hands I retreated to the warm inside of the house after only a few minutes, this is a stack of 6 shots using Autostakkert.
AP 127mm f/8, Nikon D7000, ISO 1000, 1/400s
The full moon sets behind a layer of clouds
The region around the bright crater Aristarchus is a favorite part of the moon for me.
This is a detail from the image below, the terracing on the inside of bright Aristarchus is sligthly visible. The Schröter Valley is a channel created by lava flows.
Shortly after the first quarter the crater Clavius begins to emerge from the shadows:
A partial mosaic of the lunar terminator:
This is a two-frame mosaic taken with a DMK21 camera and an Astro-Professional 80mm ED refractor:
These images were taken on the 7th of April 2009 using my 150mm Newtonian telescope with a 2x Barlow lens, using a DMK21 camera:
