A lunar session under almost perfect seeing conditions. Well, not all the time, but for about 30 minutes the seeing was very close to perfect. It is definitely one of the most memorable imaging session in recent years for me.
Equipment: 355mm F/4.5 homemade Newton, 2.7x coma corrected barlow, and 2.5x Baader barlow (for green light only). ASI 174MM with either a Red filter or a Green one! Yes, I could finally use a Green filter for lunar imaging, which is extremely rare.
First, the higher magnification Green filtered images.
Atlas and Hercules:
Posidonius:
Theophilus:
Arzachel:
The prominent trio of craters Arzachel, Alphonsus and Ptlemaeus in good seeing (7/10) at the beginning of the session. Another better version, in 8-9/10 seeing, is being processed.
Crater Moretus and the southern mountains.
And a wider view of the Moretus area, this time in Red light and very good to excellent seeing conditions:
Craters Petavius and Humboldt in high Sun illumination. One of the shots I was aiming for some years now…
A sharper view of the Arzachel, Alphonsus and Ptolemaeus area, in 8-9/10 seeing conditions, this time including the nicely iluminated Rupes Recta into view. Note the small rille perpendicular to Rupes Recta.
And a reprocessed view of Rupes Recta area only, showing the stuff that lurks in the shadows:
Another well known trio of craters, Theophilus, Cyrillus and Catharina. Bu this time, under high illumination, it is the smaller craters that look more interesting.
And some of the more interesting smaller craters, some with very interesting floors:
A wider view of craters Atlas and Hercules, this time including crater Burg at the center of Lacus Mortis.
An “in orbit”-like view showing Mare Humboldtianum on the lunar limb.
A view of perhaps the most intense rimae region on the Moon: Hyginus, Triesneker and Ariadaeus. Also, look at far left, deep in the shadows; there is a very long sinuous rimae hidden there.
If I were to be asked which is my best astro image of them all, in terms of resolution and aesthetic value, my answer will most definitely be pointing to the following image. A five image mosaic, acquired under close to perfect seeing conditions, and showing some of the most interesting and dramatic features of the northern half of our Moon. I would recommend to view it slowly, otherwise some of the finer details might be missed.
And a selected list of formations from the above image. Note the details on the floor of Archimedes and the domes near Mt. Huygens.
Plus, this large image has the smallest details ever captured by myself on the surface of the Moon: some small rilles are only about 270 meters wide!
The last image of this session, crater Maginus under “more normal” seeing conditions (7/10) and Green filter.
maximus photography 