[APML] Moonlit Swan

["John C. Mirtle" <spampit@shaw.ca>]

    Bill's in-town image of B33 reminded me of a project I started in 1993
and never finished. I wanted to see how far I could push moonlit astrophotos
with an H-alpha filter and tech pan. I was distracted with the purchase of a
Schmidt camera and never got back to it. Last night I continued the project
under some very cold and windy conditions. I wanted to shoot for 2 hours but
was rapidly turning into a popsicle by the time I was polar aligned. Some
idiot came driving in, 35 minutes into the shot, to walk his dog of all
things. It was too darn cold to continue, so I packed up my toys and left.
    The shot was with a 135mm lens, large enough to show a gradient from the
moon if one was present. As it turns out, there is NO evidence of a gradient
at all. My 2 hour target time would have given nice results. I will be
continuing my testing, but only when it warms up a bit! So, here is a image
that wouldn't have been possible without filters. 135mm f3.5 for 35 minutes,
Lumicon H-alpha, 7 minutes in D-19. The image had a slight amount of
vignetting removed, curves adjusted and the "fade-minimum" applied. I think
that it turned out well for such a short shot, but then this is a fairly
bright clump of nebulosity. Maybe one of these new fangled 3nm Ha filters
might fit.... Comments always welcome!

http://members.shaw.ca/jmirtle/moonlight.htm

John Mirtle
The Great White North

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