K3's Astronomy

	"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have set in place, what is Man that You are mindful of him?" -- Psalm 8:3,4
	K3's Astronomy - Moon

Moon and Earth Shine

A few days after new moon phase it's possible to see a dark part of the Moon. The dark part of the Moon, which we can see from the Earth, is lightened up by light reflected from the Earth (which is lightened up by Sun). The situation is evident from the picture on the right.

This is similar situation like what we can see on Earth near the full moon - we can see shadows on earth - Earth is lightened up by Moon. On Moon the similar situation occurs near new moon - in this time the Earth is near "Full Earth" and shines.

Click the image to see it in higher resolution (4.36"/pixel).	Moon 17.06.2007 21:46 - 21:48 (19:46 - 19:48 UT) Resolution: 8.72 arcsec/pixel Camera: Lumenera Lu075M (Monochrome), in 12-bit mode Telescope: Meade ETX-70AT achromatic refractor Filters: IR blocking filter Result focal length: 350 mm Result focal ratio: F5 Exposure: 974 x 66.75ms (~1/15s), 15 fps Camera settings: Gain 4.00; Gamma 1.00; Brightness 0.00; Contrast 1.00 Captured and processed: K3CCDTools 3 I captured 2 AVI files in 12-bit mode (12-bit K3CC codec). After stacking I used strong gamma (2.5) to emphasize the dark part of the Moon. Large stack size and 12-bit depth allowed me to extract also details in dark part (better visible on full size image - click the image to see it).
Click the image to see it in higher resolution (4.36"/pixel).	Moon 17.06.2007 21:43 - 21:44 (19:43 - 19:44 UT) Resolution: 8.72 arcsec/pixel Camera: Lumenera Lu075M (Monochrome), in 12-bit mode Telescope: Meade ETX-70AT achromatic refractor Filters: IR blocking filter Result focal length: 350 mm Result focal ratio: F5 Exposure: 669 x 5.0ms (1/200s), 15 fps Camera settings: Gain 1.75; Gamma 1.00; Brightness 0.00; Contrast 1.00 Captured and processed: K3CCDTools 3 The same night as the above, but I wanted to capture moon without saturation. After stacking 12-bit AVI file (12-bit K3CC codec) I used strong gamma (4.0) to emphasize the dark part of the Moon. The dark part of the Moon is much less visible because of shorter exposure and less gain than in above photo.
Click the image to see it in higher resolution (1.45"/pixel).	Moon 17.06.2007 21:37 (19:37 UT) Resolution: 2.90 arcsec/pixel Camera: Lumenera Lu075M (Monochrome), in 12-bit mode Telescope: Meade ETX-70AT achromatic refractor Filters: IR blocking filter Result focal length: 1050 mm Result focal ratio: F15 Exposure: 301 x 66.75ms (~1/15s), 15 fps Camera settings: Gain 2.50; Gamma 1.00; Brightness 0.00; Contrast 1.00 Captured and processed: K3CCDTools 3 The same night as the above - I wanted to capture the south corner in more detail.
Click the image to see it in higher resolution (3.14"/pixel).	Moon 18.03.2002 19:27 - 19:37 (18:27 - 18:37 UT) Mosaic Resolution: 6.28 arcsec/pixel Camera: Philips Vesta 675SC at prime focus with 0.60FR Telescope: 8" F6 Orion Optics Europa Newtonian Result focal ratio: F3.6 Exposure: each mosaic plate was stacked 10x3s (gain 50%), 10xDF Seeing: averaged, temperature 9°C This is mosaic of "dark side" of the Moon. The mosaic is not complete because of strong light reflections in optical system. These reflections didn't allow me to capture central part of Moon. Note the star in the bottom left corner (TYC 654 1618 1; 9.3mag). The trailing star shows the apparent movement of Moon during 30 seconds (=10x3s).

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Last Update: 27.06.2007