Backyard M
n Backyard Mn
 |
Cloudy
again? Not seen the sky for weeks? Really, really fed-up? Bored? Here are some fun things to try to take your mind off the lack of viewing .REMEMBER - |
 |
All links are followed at your own risk Play around with your photos. Straighten out those craters. Stitch your pics together and get a much bigger one or even make a panorama |
Always keep your Anti-virus and Firewall Make a paper model of a Lunar Lander or other Space craft - or even the Hubble Telescope!!! |
and
Spybot up-to-date Not got a globe of the Moon ? There are at least 2 models to download and make for free as well as for the planets |
| Still bored? Check out great panoramas at | Or even a REAL telescope ... | Work
Out 'What you would weigh on the Moon' Wow!! ;-) |
Please let me know about any non-working links Email Backyard Moon
| Lunar Prospector Spacecraft - 1/25
Scale Model Visit: http://lunarprospector.arc.nasa.gov Instructions here plus 2 pdf files: http://scikits.com/lpm/instructions.html Or get the pdfs here: LPM-1.pdf (32k) and LPM-2.pdf (9k) |
| Cassini - from NASA (they do have an
easier version!)
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/kids/activities-model-challenge.cfm Build your own Telescope - in paper ..8-)
http://www.nro.nao.ac.jp/%7Elmsa/outreach/papermodel.html It would help if you could read Japanese - but I'm sure you'll cope if you can't. Or build the Hubble Telescope (in paper at first)
http://hubblesite.org/fun_.and._games/hand-held_hubble/printout.shtml Want to keep the kids busy (what do you mean, you thought this was for kids already??) - try this NASA site
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/activities/Activities_Collection_archive_1.html If the Clouds continue - there are lots more at these sites ... http://www.freepapertoys.com/pt-space.html http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/subjects/technology/Models.html |
Make your own Scope - for real
Start to make your own, bigger, better telescope This might give you a start - follow the Telescope making Link in the menu Other links might follow |
 http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Gallery/MapsAndGlobes/ (This link will do for MARS Globes and other planets as well) The pdf download from the link is 3Mb but there seems to be a lesser version though I couldn't get it to load. The ever-wonderful USGS site is worth a browse through.
Still fiddling with this one - looks rounder than the USGS one (again- it helps to be able to read Japanese - and if you have an A3 printer) http://moon.jaxa.jp/ja/gallery/papercraft/planet.html
|
Fun things to try with your Moon photos if the clouds persist
| TIP: Hand held camera? point the camera at the sky and partially depress the camera button, this sets the autofocus to infinity, and then whilst still keeping the button partially depressed , take your picture through the 'scope ( Thanks Keith and Val) |
This is not an expert HOW-to-do-it page - more of a have-a-go-at-this-if-you-get-bored page and let me know if you get some good results then I can improve. Would be interested to see what others have done with similar programs.
|
| Merging and Mosaics Warping Stacking Articles on Astrophotography |
| If you have photos which overlap, you might be able to 'stitch' them together and give you a bigger, better picture. Taken to the extreme, you can make a mosaic of the good bits of your moon pics and end up with a larger, sharper view of the Moon. There are some good examples on the web and in newsgroups. If you have managed to do this and would like a link here then let me know. |
Software to use You can do this manually with imaging software or try the specialised programs which do the fiddling for you. If you have a Canon camera, then you will probably have a program called Photostitch which will do this. There is also MGI PhotoVista which comes with other cameras and does a similar job. |
Example
 |
 |
 |
| Photo with Crisium and Langrenus | Photo with Langrenus and Petavius | Merged photo with all three on
I put both stills into the Stitch program which came with one of our cameras, put them as vertical and used their settings to merge both photos |
Planetwarp Brilliant program from Philip Masding and Mike Tyrrell free for non commercial use. Pick a crater on one of your Moon pics which is near the rim and therefore looks oval - and PlanetWarp will show you how it really looks! (well, almost) http://www.astrospider.com/planetwarp.htm or also on April 2007 Sky at Night magazine cd |
||
|
Add a few points round the rim then add a
pointer in the centre of the crater of interest and PlanetWarp does the rest Thanks Philip, thanks Mike for the fun Have a go, folk - you can do better! |
|
| Registax free program for stacking any cam images |
If you have a set of photos you can enhance the output by stacking the individual frames, cutting out the 'poor' bits and bringing out the detail | Registax will take .avi but wouldn't accept mine :-( see below for details of Virtual Dub which changes avi into acceptable form for Registax |
 |
This is a frame from a short, shaky video taken with my
hand held Caplio G3 digital camera Video ran a few seconds (about 9) and I used about 100 frames (sorry for vagueness, never take notes) |
Loaded the video into Movie maker and saved the frames Should have been more picky and just used the best - but they were so small and I dislike messing about with photos |
 |
This is the end result - stacked, enlarged and rotated with
a faint smudge in the south where the Terra Sirenum would have been The seeing was very poor, with thin high cloud |
see Planets page You CAN do better!!
|
| Using Virtual Dub:
this loads the avi files produced by my camera.
I can load it in, cut out the worst of the stills and any sound then resave the rest as an
avi file which Registax will recognise Virtual Dub and Registax are free programs - many thanks to their authors!!!! |
 |
 |
| http://www.virtualdub.org/index | Very dark still from camera video - not a lot of detail showing on the lava of the sea | Result after stacking and twiddling!! |
Articles on Astrophotography etc.
| http://skyandtelescope.com/howto/imaging/article_176_1.asp
Astro Imaging with Digital Cameras |
| http://www.popastro.com/imagetutorial/tutorial.htm Five-minute tutorial on image file types and sizes |
| A little more formation on the basic methods I've used are on the New site, via Equipment, Tal page should you want them |
| MORE will be coming .... (eventually ... ) |
.
Oh dear - the clouds are really that bad are they? Living near Manchester, I know how you feel. Never mind - work out your weight in lbs, enter it in then press the Calculate button - and you should get to see what you'd weigh if you were on the Moon (if my Javascript works!) What will you weigh when you get to the Moon? If the clouds won't go away ... and you've got in a muddle with your paper models ... and your photos won't stack then you can work out what you weigh on the different planets courtesy of NASA and University of Hawaii ...8-)
|
|
Areas of the Moon | |
| Phases of the Moon | Links, Books, Software | Moon news, librations, lunations... |
For
the Kids at NASA
