Focus on the Moon

The sky cleared Monday morning so I was able to take a few images during some focus testing. It is relatively easy to focus on stars and the PTO uses software to bring the scope to focus for those images. It is much more difficult to focus on the Sun, the Moon or the planets. So, I am trying different techniques to see which one provides the best focus.

The images are just random portions of the lunar disk.

In the first, the curved sweeping mountain chain is the Montes Apenninus (Apennine mountains) which separates the lunar ‘seas’ Mare Imbrium (lower) and Mare Serenitatis(upper).

The second image shows the heavily cratered southern portion of the Moon. The southern pole lies just off the right edge of the image. The largest crater shown at the lower right is the crater Clavius. It’s the one with the internal curved set of increasing diameter craters.