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Taking photos of the moon

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 Denni 02 Feb 2012
Hi folks,
The moon has been pretty clear and beautiful this week down on the south coast and I'm going to try and get a good couple of fots tonight. I have a Nikon D5000 with an ordinary lens as well as one of those tele convertors which is 2x.
Can someone give me any good hints with this set up or do I need a decent telephoto lens?
Many thanks, Den
 andi turner 02 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni: Depend what kind of shot you're after. For a landscape and moon shot then something wide, if you want a detailed shot, then I recommend something above 200mm. The best way though involves using a wecam and a decent lens.
 london_huddy 02 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni:

-It's brighter than you think so go into maunal
-It moves quicker than you think so keep up
-Your lens will wobble more than you think so get the tripod out, the mirror locked up and remote control or timer set up!
 Coel Hellier 02 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni:

> ... or do I need a decent telephoto lens?

Realistically yes you do (if you're talking about seeing detail on the moon, not just a picture of the moon in landscape). There's some pictures here at different focal lengths. About 300mm is a rough minimum for good results.

http://stopshootingauto.com/2010/04/23/what-lens-should-i-use-to-take-a-pic...
 chris fox 02 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni:

I took one with my 70-200 & 2x @ 1/500 and f7.1 (in manual mode) iso 400 then cropped it in lightroom and tweaked the brightness.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisfox/

I've reduced the size to 12kb, so it's not super sharp on flickr, the RAW is much higher obviously
In reply to Denni:
For the moon at quarter like it is now, put your camera to manual and try the following exposure: F4, ISO100, 1/250 sec.
Double exposure time for every stop slower (eg F5.6) (half for faster eg F2.8)
Half the exposure time for every doubling of ISO.
This'll get you close, experiment for best results. It's surprising what a short exposure is needed. This is independent of focal length.

Can handhold upto about 200mm at this time (perhaps go to ISO200), which is about the shortest focal length worth bothering with to get a picture of just the moon.

1500mm will more or less fill the frame of a crop sensor DSLR.





 Brian 03 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni: I would recommend using your 'spot meter' as well as the above comments
 dek 03 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni:
The moon disk is lit by bright sunshine, ignore the blackness and base the exp for around a sunny day.
Removed User 03 Feb 2012
 harry1969 03 Feb 2012
In reply to Removed User:
> (In reply to Removed Userdek)
>
>
> http://www.lik.com/thework/newrelease.html or do it like Lik


What, you mean make up a composite image then write a load of crap pretending you took it as one image? If it was genuine then why would the moon be in front of, and obscuring, the red glow of the sky caused by the sunrise? Don't know about you guys but any time I've taken pictures of the moon it was OUTSIDE the Earth's atmosphere!!! If anyone could give me any info on the time of day when this is not the case I'd be very grateful!

Harry.
Removed User 03 Feb 2012
In reply to harry1969:

think he's a Star Wars Fan


thats no moon, thats a..
In reply to Denni:
Could always make up one of these - simple and smacks a bit of Blue Peter but it works a treat.
http://www.mikeoates.org/mas/projects/calc/
In reply to harry1969:

I'm quite proud of these, because they are not composite shots:

http://www.gordonstainforth.co.uk/images/moonRHstride.jpg
http://www.gordonstainforth.co.uk/images/moonThorpeCloud.jpg

Sorry, quality not v good because they were taken on my Hasselblad and my scanner doesn't do 2 1/4 transparencies, so I had to scan them directly from my Peak book.

The RH Stride shot was taken with a 500mm lens that I hired especially from London. With the moon that size, with any exposure over about 30 secs, it starts to blur, it's moving so fast. The trick, as here, to get sufficient ambient light is to take the pictures soon after sunset the day before full moon. It's all got a lot easier now with the much higher ISO of a modern digital camera, which means you can capture that ambient light in the landscape with much shorter exposures.
 dek 04 Feb 2012
In reply to Removed User:
> (In reply to Removed Userdek)
>
>
> http://www.lik.com/thework/newrelease.html or do it like Lik

Do you fink its been 'shopped'?!
Removed User 04 Feb 2012
In reply to dek:

No idea dek, I hadn't heard of him until the other day when I saw an article about a photo of his getting a million. Not my cup of tea but hey ho he earns more than I do :-0) he alludes to two exposures I think I read somewhere.
 petestack 04 Feb 2012
 PanzerHanzler 05 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni:

My best effort to date:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanzler666/5224986062/in/photostream


Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Exposure: 0.005 sec (1/200)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
 Chewie65 05 Feb 2012
In reply to Gordon Stainforth: Nice shots!
 andi turner 05 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni: For the alternative set up.... this is one I took with a £150 telescope and a £6 webcam.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30536520@N02/5529150323/sizes/l/in/set-7215761...

It's worth considering if you were going to splash out on an expensive lens with the moon in your sights.
 PanzerHanzler 05 Feb 2012
In reply to andi turner:

Andi - could you post details of that set-up, I was lucky and able to borrow a a lens more expensive than I can afford. Your pic' is crisper, although I was using a below spec x2 step-up ring.

Can you get adaptors for to interface betwen common makes of camera and telescopes?
OP Denni 05 Feb 2012
In reply to PanzerHanzler:

Evening folks,
appreciate all the answers, help and advice.

Have always been after a telescope so have managed to afford one of these from funds saved in my paypal account after a recent gear clearout:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/az-goto/skywatcher-skymax-127-synscan-az-go...

Gets really good reviews and is probably more for the intermediate user but I thought what the hell!

Juat have to wait for it to tip up, try and figure it out and then get some more clear skies.
 andi turner 06 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni: That's a great first telescope! And a good supplier too.

The next job (for taking pics) is to get a webcam (SPC900NC or SPC880) and a nose piece like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Philips-SPC900NC-Webcam-Astrophotography-/2609503... and you're away!

You can also buy t-adapters to connect your DSLR to the eyepiece which give good results too....but it's a slippery and expensive slope from there on in!
 andi turner 06 Feb 2012
In reply to PanzerHanzler:

Yeah, the set up in that case was a 1000mm f/5 Newtonian Reflector with a 5x Powermate, which makes the scope into a 5000mm f/25. You drop the webcam into the eyepiece slot and take some short films which are recorded as AVI's at 10fps. You get about a 1000frames and then stack them together and disguard all the ones which are of a lower quality (Due to an effect called 'seeing'), apply some wavelets and you're away! For that image, the sensor is small in the webcam that I need to mozaic/stitch 30 panels together. This gives the image its resolution and crispness. You can't come close with a normal camera and lens
OP Denni 06 Feb 2012
In reply to andi turner:

Hi Andi,
After heaps of looking around and various calls, the 127 came top of most people's list for a beginner because it is really easy to use and if you advance quickly, it can be used for more advanced stuff
Cheers for the link forthe webcam, that was going to be my next question!
Funnily enough, on stargazers lounge, that webcam series seem to be the most recommended for consistency.
Just itching for itmto arrive and hoping we get a few more nights like we had last week to try it out.
All the best, Den
 halo 27 Feb 2012
In reply to andi turner: Cracking shot Andi, you have captured the craters beautifully.

What webcam/telescope combination did you use? My brother has a Sky Watcher with a 1.25" eyepiece.
 Richard Smith 27 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni: This is my effort of a picture of the Moon. Used my Canon 20D with a 75-300mm IS lens, f8, ISO200 at 1/500sec hand held.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16696189@N07/5346366044/in/photostream
In reply to Richard Smith:

That's pretty good for a HH shot.

Well done.
In reply to Denni:
These are the webcams (and accessories) the astronomy folk love.
http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/c/556/Astronomy/
They're very dated by webcam standards, but fairly sensitive in low light, and very easy to connect to the telescope with the screw in eyepiece adaptor on the same website. Run them at 5 frames per second to minimise the compression needed to run the data over an ancient usb 1 link and as low a gain as possible to minimise the noise.
Using free stacking software like Registax or Avisynth you can get some good images.
This is a bit of the moon taken at 1500mm F10 with the webcam.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77393937@N02/6790404896/

 Richard Carter 28 Feb 2012
In reply to Denni:

Shoot outside, shooting through windows (open ones) isn't so good.

If you use live view or anything like that for focussing give the camera (well the sensor) time to cool down before taking the shot.

You can stack images and average the random noise out for greater clarity.
 Richard Smith 28 Feb 2012
In reply to Ghastly Rubberfeet: Thank you.
 halo 01 Mar 2012
In reply to Richard Smith: Cracking effort Richard, I see yours was shot at an earlier time of day.

Here's one I took much later in the day, sitting on my ass with tripod in the wind trying to stabilise an 300mm lense! http://www.flickr.com/photos/27040583@N06/6804011759/in/set-721576286688373...

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