Photographing the Moon

[Andy]

Originally Posted by NickR

Hi Andy, It would be good to see all images the same size (cropped) to see how the TC effect the image quality, I guess it could be possible to get a better shot the same size without a TC? Or is magnification everything shooting moon shots?

Cheers

All things being equal, adding teleconverters does reveal more detail.. But, and its a big but, the problems of extra focal length and adding more glass creates it's own problems that can diminish the detail.

cheers,
Andy

[Bish]

Here's one from tonight, What a difference a few days make to the amount of detail visible

400mm f8 1/200th ISO-200

Regards Bish.

[NickR]

This is tonight's effort, 3rd shot taken. I'm getting the hang of this!

Edited it PS, used auto curves, little sharpening and B&W.

[Don Hoey]

Two impressive pics Nick & Bish. I have just done a mod on the old 2x TC so it will go on my 80-200ED f2.8 Nikkor.

If this afternoons tests are reasonable I will have a go with this tonight.

Don

[Canis Vulpes]

Here is an interesting article from NASA about moonlight and the eye.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2....htm?list68516

[yelvertoft]

Originally Posted by Stephen Fox

Here is an interesting article from NASA about moonlight and the eye.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2....htm?list68516

Thanks for that link Stephen, very interesting.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Stephen Fox

Here is an interesting article from NASA about moonlight and the eye.

You post this Foxy and I spend 2 whole evenings trying for something a bit different.

So after many hours the result is in the gallery.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Following my gallery post of Moon, Clouds and a Reflection I thought I would post a bit of an explanation for anyone else considering trying it.

For me the most striking effect on the long exposure background was the ghost reflection. Sassan has probably correctly attributed this to a reflection from the filter. In this case a Nikon L1A. Until the total cloud cover we now have goes, I cannot check this out. I have attached a composite of 2 images taken immediately one after the other but with a slight change of moon, re-positioning in the frame. It was fairly windy and the degree of cloud move is quite obvious when comparing the 2 shots.

Also attached is a composite showing the two images used in making the final. The most obvious thing to note is the exposure difference - 8 stops. The moon itself on the background exposure is totally burnt out and part of the shadow area is recorded. A problem with the long exposure required to get some detail in visible clouds is that high ice cloud, if present, will also be recorded. Fine for a nice effect but unless you are a digital darkroom wizard it does present problems when combining two images. The problem to be overcome is shown well in the ' Moon Move Overlay ' image.

The overlay of the 2 images shows the degree of movement by the moon during the 1 sec exposure. The overlay was lined up with the rear visible detail. To arrive at the final image the perfectly exposed moon was brightened to not look stuck on, and size increased to 105%. Although at this size in the final shot there appears to be a bright ring around the edge of the moon, when viewed at 300% there is detail almost to the edge allbeit faily bright. Shrinking the image has lost this. Merging the two together at this point with the clone brush took well over an hour as the final edge had to be blurred and not sharp. CA at the bottom of the moon was left in as to have removed that would probbly have taken another hour or more. Something I will do at a later date.

Lessons learnt for a future go is to take the cloud exposure and the final moon shot within 10 minutes of each other. As the sun moves so does the angle of the visible edge section of the moon. Unless the moon itself in the base exposure is in clear black sky there will be problems combining the images. I failed to do that on my first trial on Saturday night.

Stevie advises me that if the conditions are good we should have a Harvest Moon between 4 - 7th October. The moon will be full on the 7th.

Don

[Don Hoey]

At the moment the moon is displaying a particularly high level of detail. Particularly good if you have a scope.

This is this evenings effort with 300mm f4.5 AIS Nikkor ( not by a long chalk, the sharpest pencil in Nikons box ) and 2x pretty rubbish converter, taken through high hazy cloud. ISO200, 1/100sec at f6.7.

Don

[Canis Vulpes]

I noticed yesterday evening travelling on a motorway a glorious harvest moon on the horizon at 19:00 (approx). Weather forecast for this evening is clear and with excellent visibility, it might be one of the best opportunities to photograph the harvest moon in years.