Another Moon attempt, just because I’m still trying out the new camera.

A somewhat moody Moon from earlier tonight – there were some clouds coming in and out which I had not seen in the camera display, so that’s why the lower half of the moon is slightly darker. Stacked from 20 images with Registax as usual with a bit of wavelet sharpening and a highpass filter.

Tonight’s Moon, which came out surprisingly well even though I shot it through the kitchen window and it was already low in the sky. Stacked from 15 images with Registax, a little wavelet sharpening and a highpass filter in PSP. As usual, this is all the resolution I can get with my camera.

I already tweeted this image earlier today in support of the still ongoing CosmoQuest Hangoutathon, but here it is again as a proper post and as another reminder that you can go to CosmoQuest.org to map the Moon, Mars, Mercury and Vesta – and also donate! This year’s donations have already surpassed the previous two Hangoutathons, but the more the better!

This is yesterday’s Moon as a reminder that the CosmoQuest Hangoutathon is going on right now, supporting the citizen science mappers programs. You can map craters and features on the Moon, on the asteroid Vesta, Mercury and now Mars yourself to help and do science – just go to CosmoQuest.org, get started and maybe donate!

Another Moon attempt with the new camera from April 22nd. Stacked from about 20 source images with Registax as usual with a bit of wavelet sharpening plus a bit of colour correction in PSP.

For this evening’s ISS pass, perfect for a little Yuri’s Night celebration. I was better prepared. While I didn’t have any problems taking this photo, the processing is still a nightmare because of a problem involving bad pixel removal with my new camera. This is not really as good as it should actually look – but it’s still nice enough for a casual view and just for the occasion I decided to post it anyway.

Apart from the ISS, yesterday evening I captured an Iridium satellite flare on camera – only the second time I managed this. The Iridium flares can be predicted to the second and I was not quite sure if this would appear behind or over the tree, but 30° elevation seem to be slightly above the maple. Those flares happen because the satellite is briefly illuminated by the sun, fading in for only a few seconds and then fading out again while travelling along at roughly the speed of the ISS. If you want to look for the ISS, Iridium flares and maybe other satellites appearing in the night sky, check out the excellent tracking site Heavens Above!

This happened entirely by chance… while watching the Weekly Space Hangout the ISS was mentioned and I had completely forgotten that tonight was of the first good opportunities to view a pass around here. About ten minutes before I set up the new camera quickly – it was the first time I used it to capture the ISS and while the processing was a bit of a nightmare with too many pixel errors, I think the result worked out fine. This is a single 120-second exposure with a Canon Powershot SX1 running CHDK.

We didn’t get to see the Lunar Eclipse this weekend, but at least I had a chance to grab some photos of the Moon yesterday evening. This is a tonemapped HDR from three stacked exposures with about 20 images each – I’ve tried this before and the increased dynamic in brightness made this interesting processing experiment possible, even though it’s still somewhat noisy.