3000 frames were obtained in the Red, Green, Blue filters with the ZWO 1600mm pro. The best 80% of these were stacked in Autostakkert.

I then took each master image for the Red, Green, Blue filters and combined into a single color image in Photoshop. This also required some manual alignment on my part to get the channels to align with each other.

After this was complete. I did some mild curves stretch to the blue channel, and camera raw filter to adjust the tone, desaturate the green channel (it was way overpowered), and bring out the contrast of the image. After this was completed I increased the saturation slightly of the RGB image, and applied some light sharpening was done to finalize the image.

I started out taking images of the moon a little over a year and a half ago. This is what really started my passion for astrophotography. Back then it was a simple celestron 130SLT that would work some of the time, and a camera on a separate tripod or my phone. I was so new to astronomy both visual and photography I did not even know how or that the mount would track the moon in the sky. The moon is what sparked a passion in me to dive deeper into astronomy and astrophotography. I have had more failures than successes, but when there is success it is awe inspiring.

This image is the result of countless hours of learning, and failures. I am extremely proud of how this image turned out. I look forward to what the next year of learning will bring. For now I come back to the awe inspiring celestial neighbor the Moon.