Moon. Am I doing it right?

[lokisbong]

Am I doing it right?This is a shot I took of the moon a little while ago.I did sharpen it up a bit (about 50%) and cropped it to 640 by 480 with no sizing with Gimp.

[RcMacStudent]

Looks like a good start to me. Although I’d give it a little longer shutter time to brighten it up a bit.

Have you got a longer lens/telescope or an idea for an aesthetic framing to take it to the next level?

[lokisbong]

I so wish I had another lens.I just got the camera (Canon EOS Rebel xs with the 18-55 mm kit lens)for xmas so I have not had a chance to get more lenses. I have a pair of binoculars but I’m not sure how well that will work even with a tripod. when I took this picture it was almost directly overhead so not much to frame it with or against.

[Killerclaw]

I wish I had a tripod manly enough for my 70-210 lens so I could shoot the moon.

[NoticeablyF.A.T.]

What I’ve been using is a spotting scope window mount mounted on the bar of a quick clamp. This is as solid a mount as I’ve been able to come up with, as long as there is something solid to put it on.

[lokisbong]

Would humidity affect moon pictures very much because it has been close to 100% humidity lately and I just thought about that. I just can not seem to get a really clear shot.

this is tonights effort.hand held this time because the shutter speed is still quite fast for a night shot.100% humidity again tonight.

[AMRA]

Would humidity affect moon pictures very much because it has been close to 100% humidity lately and I just thought about that. I just can not seem to get a really clear shot.

Absolutely. Cold, clear, dry nights are best for attempting moon shots.

Here’s one I took last year with my Sony a200 DLSR. The moon was so bright it hurt to look at. ISO was set at 200 and the shutter speed was 1/500th. I used the 75mm-300mm lens.

I hit the picture with a little sharpening and contrast enhancement, but not much.

I do prefer to shoot pics of the moon when it is not full. You can capture more of the surface texture rather than just a flat looking disk. This one is from back in July of last year.

[soosh]

I got these last week

[lokisbong]

Whoa. this thread got the dust knocked off . I think having a zoom lens has done me a world of good on moon pictures.

I still tell my mom thanks for the 55-250 lens she got me for xmas.

[AMRA]

soosh: I’ve tried taking shots like that but mine never turn out well.

lokisbong: That bottom shot is amazing. Nicely done.

As for dusting off an old thread…. I just joined the forums and taking moon pictures is a fascination of mine. Hope ya don’t mind. 🙂

[lokisbong]

I certainly don’t mind. I had forgotten about this thread is all . thanks that bottom shot was my desk top for around 3 months. I am currently using the other picture

[Kestrana]

Welcome to the forum 🙂

[lokisbong]

Yeah that too. Welcome. 😀

[soosh]

soosh: I’ve tried taking shots like that but mine never turn out well.

lokisbong: That bottom shot is amazing. Nicely done.

As for dusting off an old thread…. I just joined the forums and taking moon pictures is a fascination of mine. Hope ya don’t mind. 🙂

it’s a tricky shot to be sure. You’ve got to stop way down to f/11 – f/16 or higher to have any hope of both parts having any definition, and then you’ve got to nail the exposure at that small aperture.

I took forty or fifty shots at various focal lengths between 100mm and 400mm to get that. and you’ve got to have an area where you can constantly move to keep the perspective right as the moon moves. I was lucky to find a deserted pull-out on a deserted road where I could walk my tripod back and forth without worrying.

[ravnostic]

I have a nice series of shots of Venus being occulted by the moon from 2008; it’s on my youtube account (search ‘ravnostic’); but youtube is performing maintenance so I can’t link it now. But it’s there if anyone wants to look. I have some fantastic shots of the moon taken using a-focal photography with my 11 inch telescope, but they’re on my terabyte backup drive and I’m out and about on my laptop at the moment.

Meanwhile, a little bit off topic, but here’s a link to a shot of the very thin crescent moon (phase 2.09%, doesn’t get much smaller than that to photograph), as well as Mercury and Jupiter. With the crescent so small, you can actually see the 4 Galilian moons of Jupiter that were visible at the time (3 are easy as they are next to each other; Io [closest], Europa, and Ganymede; Callisto is a bit harder to spot on the other side, about twice as far out as Ganymede.) I could only get the moons of Jupiter with our moon due to our moons tiny phase; elsewise, the moon would have been totally overexposed (as it is, Jupiter is overexposed to capture the moons, as is Mercury.)

http://fossilspringsaz.com/pics/2010/apr/12/moonshot.jpg

Because it’s a 227mm focal length (they were only 5 degrees apart total), and an 2 second exposure on a Canon XTi, the pic isn’t as clear as I’d like due to things in the sky moving quite a bit at that focal length for that amount of time.

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