DennisN said:
There is one issue I forgot to mention though: I did not use a moon filter, which I should have. This was because I could not fit the variable polarizing filter I've got with the setup I used at the time.
I never use a filter on the moon. There's really no need to even if the moon is nearing or is full moon.
Just drop the exposure time so that the image isn't over exposed. You are just adding extra glass to the optical path
that will further distort the resulting image
The best times to image the moon and get the most
detail of craters etc is up to and a little past first quarter ... as in my examples above. There's nothing wrong with imaging the
full moon if you just want that, just don't expect a lot of detail as most of it will get washed out in the brightness
DennisN said:
I changed the exposure time and brightness in the software SharpCap instead. Quick and dirty

.
yup, exactly
DennisN said:
Nevertheless I extracted two of the best images from two different movies and here they are
(directly extracted, no modifications and with the original 90 degrees rotation):
OK ... now, I'm not sure how much of the blur is 1) the moon motion, 2) the unknown quality of the optics in the scope,
3) the quality of the webcam, 4) focussing or 5) a combination of some or all 4 of the above.
Referring to #2, how does the moon look through the scope visually ... eye to eyepiece ?
Is it reasonably sharp with good detail ? Do you see any colour fringes around the edge of the moon ... like a poor rainbow ?
If it looks reasonably respectable, then the blur can be put down to the other 3 things ... motion, focussing, camera.
Registax ( or any other stacking prog) will really struggle to stack a set of images that are moving across the field of view ... seriously!

And then on top of that other vibrations
This is where my comments on a solid mount become apparent ... You will see those comments in this thread and any other one where
people are struggling with imaging ...
I really cannot stress it strong enough !

There's no point having a $2k scope on a crappy mount and even a very good mount will make a middle of the road scope perform well.
Hence my comments a few posts back ... spend money on a decent mount, even if it is just for this current scope ...
at least you will have a decent mount for a better scope in the future
Other big advantage of a decent mount is that it will be one you can do tracking with it, as all the respectable ones come with different
tracking speed settings, eg ... Solar, Lunar, sidereal ( for tracking deep space objects ( galaxies, nebula etc)
This is because the sun, moon and stars all move at different rates across the sky.
DennisN said:
am considering building a small DIY Dobsonian mount, since it seems to be a quite good design both for targeting reasons and stability, and
I watched a couple of youtube videos where people were building mounts. I think it would be fun to do.
Dobo's are great, do a decent one with say an 8" mirror, don't mess around with anything smaller ...6" or less ... will lead to disappointment
Keep in mind with a dobo, you will still have no tracking and you will need to confine imaging to single very short exposure single shots
Most scopes on dobo mounts are Newtonian reflectors and generally low f-ratios, eg f4.5 to around f7 and that tube could always be
transferred to a tracking mount at a later date

OK that will do for this post ... a pretty long spiel haha
Will let you digest it and make any comments/questions Dave