Moon - steps in building a mosaic

Images taken with cooled CCD's, pixel size matched, very short exposures are superior to any other kind of pictures (such as those taken with film or digital cameras or webcams). The Moon should be covered by at least 1500 x 2000 pixels, and with the CCD's we have this is only possible through pasting together pieces into a mosaic.

Images taken: Nov. 19, 2004, by Dena Lester and Jennifer Harkins.

Telescope: Meade 12 in with f/10, direct focus. Pixel size: 0.67 as.

Size of the individual images: 240 x 320, 2.7'x 3.6'.

Camera: SBIG ST-5 CCD cooled to -10 C..

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Seeing: ~ 2 as.

Exposures: 200 x 0.01 sec.

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This has been the first step in an exploratory project. Our images do not cover all of the Moon. We are planning to do full coverage in the future and also to attempt to fuse toghether images taken at varying illumination.

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Image processing: CCDoops, CCDSoft + Photoshop (with Photomerge).