EOS 300d: First (lunar) light

Dear Friends,

It was with great anticipation that I setup my newly arrived EOS 300d at the prime focus of my Celestron 14" SCT and immediately went after our moon for first light last night. The presence of very thin clouds was something that frustrated me during the 90-minute session and which was exacerbated by the lack of an opportunity at a clear shot.

Nevertheless, I took four sample photos and was delighted by the results once everything had been downloaded onto my laptop. For a glimpse of one of these test shots I kindly direct you to

www.perseus.gr/Work-Area/EOS0021_RT16.jpg

where you will find a 20% resampling of the original image. For the latter, it was taken in RAW mode and at 3072x2048, converted to 16-bit TIFF and had two iterations of a slight unsharp masking applied. I also did some very minor stretching and levels adjustment. Please note that this is a single image and not a mosaic or a result of stacking.

I was also not very keen on having to use my star diagonal due to the altitude of the moon which represents a potential source of light loss but the result is much better than I expected and especially considering it was taken through the thin clouds. I was particularly excited by the craterlets on the floor of Mare Serenitatis as well as the detail of the Appenine Mountain range and Mare Vaporum immediately below it. Ditto for the small craters in the northwestern quadrant of Mare Tranquillitatis.

I am rubbing my hands in anticipation of the forthcoming work with this new camera over the next few months.

Clear skies to all!

Anthony.

Excellent image Anthony. We too have just got a Canon 300D and I took some images of the Sun the other day through an Orion 80mm APO.

The results are really excellent and I'm looking forward to some moon and DSO shots in the coming months. I might take up birdwatching in the meantime as the clouds are so frequent

Clear and Dark Skies


MarkDJ

anthony,
great image, amazing number of craters on it. good work.
stephen.

Lovely shot, excellent exposure and great detail.

Very striking shot.
Love the detail. !!
There are no boundaries with that camera/telescope combination.