Photographing the Moon

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by NickR

Don, that looks a lot better, I think the reason why you cannot open my file is because I converted it to greyscale? I will post another to my gallery without editing. I'll try and find another shoot with a larger F stop.

Cheers

I did have another go Nick. I can open in Paint Shop Pro 8 but no histogram and limited functions.

I will keep an eye open for your next pic.

Don

[NickR]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

I did have another go Nick. I can open in Paint Shop Pro 8 but no histogram and limited functions.

I will keep an eye open for your next pic.

Don

Don, Just uploaded an F8 shot which I got from a 9 shot bracket,

Cheers

[Canis Vulpes]

The purpose of yesterday was to experiment with handheld and was surprisingly easy. I shot this one quite early after one or two others. After a short break I noticed something flying across the moon so grabbed the camera, pointed and hoped, I am kind of pleased with this one.

Camera and lens (200-400 at 400mm) f4, 1/400 ISO 250 Matrix metering -0.7EV RAW

NX converted to B&W cropped then sharpened in PS.

I confess to living near an airport but I do not recall one taking off and if so would have turned out to South so I am not sure where the aeroplane came as the moon was near due East, aeroplane would have to turned to the North the pass the moon. The aeroplane appears to be a boring 737.

[Don Hoey]

Nick,

I have done a little job on your image. Not sure if you or Bish have used curves before so I have attatched a graphic. There is a thread on this in the Digital Darkroom.

The attatched image was done in NX where I also converted to B&W. The snag with the moon in this phase is as you commented the lack of shadow detail. So B&W was used as a way of increasing contrast to try and bring out detail. Now that the moon is starting to wane, over the period 9th to 14th September ( last quarter ) this is the time to catch more detail.

Note to Admin. If this works problem SOLVED

Don

[Don Hoey]

Here is something to put our humble efforts into perspective.

Stevie does a bit of star gazing using her birding scope, and so gets a couple of monthly magazines. In the readers gallery of one of her latest is a full page well detailed image of the moon about 1/2 phase.

Quote " The moon is a difficult subject for astronomers because of the low contast among its surface features. This 42-image mosaic captures the full face in great detail. ( 9.25 inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at f10, ToUcam Pro webcam. For each of the 42 images, the imager selected and stacked the best 20-30 frames out of 500. ) "

My reading of this suggests then that the final composite is made up from the best of 21,000 frames.

Don

[Mick V]

Only just seen this thread, very interesting.
Take a look at a shot i took with my D70 using a 80-400 vr Teleplus 2x converter 1/160 @ F/5.6 ISO200 hand held.
http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...3/DSC5140c.jpg

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Mick V

Only just seen this thread, very interesting.
Take a look at a shot i took with my D70 using a 80-400 vr Teleplus 2x converter 1/160 @ F/5.6 ISO200 hand held.

Very impressive Mick. Are you sure you need the monopod in your avatar ?

There must be something about Nikon and siezed joints.

I have not circumbed yet and have to rely on a heavy tripod. I'll blame my eyes for the rest.

Don

[Bish]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

Nick,

I have done a little job on your image. Not sure if you or Bish have used curves before so I have attatched a graphic. There is a thread on this in the Digital Darkroom.

The attatched image was done in NX where I also converted to B&W. The snag with the moon in this phase is as you commented the lack of shadow detail. So B&W was used as a way of increasing contrast to try and bring out detail. Now that the moon is starting to wane, over the period 9th to 14th September ( last quarter ) this is the time to catch more detail.

Note to Admin. If this works problem SOLVED

Don

Thanks for the info on curves Don, I haven't used them before but followed your advice with this image in Lightroom which has improved it a bit, also converted to B&W, I will try some more shots as the moon wanes.

Regards Bish.

[Don Hoey]

Here is a composite from yesterday for those that missed it.

Don

[NickR]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

Nick,

I have done a little job on your image. Not sure if you or Bish have used curves before so I have attatched a graphic. There is a thread on this in the Digital Darkroom.

The attatched image was done in NX where I also converted to B&W. The snag with the moon in this phase is as you commented the lack of shadow detail. So B&W was used as a way of increasing contrast to try and bring out detail. Now that the moon is starting to wane, over the period 9th to 14th September ( last quarter ) this is the time to catch more detail.

Note to Admin. If this works problem SOLVED

Don

Don,

Thanks for your efforts and advice, its amazing what you can do with a little curve adjustment, I will have another go tonight and if I need to will mess around with curves. I have tried USM which does seem to help bring out the shadow a bit but the downside for me is I get a thin halo round the moon.

Cheers