4.3.20

4.03.2020 Daylight Moonlight.

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Wednesday 4th 17:00 45/41F. The slightly obese, half moon is high in the south east. Sky still blue, sun has set for all intents and purposes behind the trees. Some cloud crossing. Thought I'd better have a look. The blood red moon was clearly visible through the Baader D-ERF but I removed it anyway.

I left the protective 2" UV/IR filters in place. The moon remained red but the ASI174MM camera is mono. So it didn't really care. The view on the 25" monitor looked stunning! Though not quite as sharp as the 7" on my last lunar imaging session. I could see the minor crates in Plato on the screen with the 7". Though not with the 6". The seeing conditions and lighting may have been different back then.

17:15 Cloud thickening rapidly again! No moon visible now. Giving up until later. Here's a quick still: [Image: Above right:]

I'm capturing lots of 2k frame videos in 9 seconds of the Plato region and elsewhere of course.  800x600, 240fps, 4ms, Gain 275 in SharpCap. Clear but lots of large scale thermal agitation of the entire image. 640 x 480 260fps. ZWO ASI174.

Went back out after the cloud cleared after dark. The  moon was now 57° high. I tried all sorts of settings to see what might work best. Frame size, very short exposures, lots of frames, etc. More thermal agitation as time passed.

Filled the internal 250GB D-ERF twice over and had to transfer the video files over to the external 1T SSD.  Went back indoors at 20.30 for a shower and dinner as solid cloud covered the sky. Venus was bright in the West but I couldn't get it to show on the screen with any setting in SharpCap.


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