my Moon Pictures.

[YT2095]

Last night was the 1`st chance to get a picture of the moon, I was using a 1200mm lens with a CCD ratio of 1.7 making it effectively 2040mm.

the image is uncropped, and although has a little blur from clouds and camera shake (the SLR mirror is quite strong and moves the cam a bit), it hasn`t turned out too badly for a 1`st try.

 

 

here`s another one that I took tonight, the Moon is currently Waxing, and it`s neat to see the features as almost 3D at the edges due to shadow detail created by the craters.

I`m using a 600mm lens for this shot with the same 1.7 aspect ratio.

 

[YT2095]

This one was taken last night, it`s a full moon that`s a little past its sell-by date as you can see crater detail on the Right hand side of it now.

I was using a 420mm lens this time as I was in a carpark having a cig and didn`t want to set up bigger stuff, it still has the 1.7 aspect ratio making it about 700mm.

 

 

I`v figured out how to crop the image so it doesn`t include a load of black space at the edges, hopefully if the weather stays nice and it`s clear out we will get some nice crater detail over the next couple of weeks from the Other side

[fredrik]

Nice pics!

 

I'm curious how the pics look in colour with a longer exposure? or do you use only the b/w mode on the camera?

 

You must be able to get spectacular glow-pictures unless it gets blurry?

 

I don't have such teleobjective so I never tried to shoot the moon.

 

/Fredrik

[YT2095]

they do get blurry on a long exposure as well as over exposed, since it`s actually Moving across the sky, you can even get a trail effect if you leave the shutter open for too long.

you also have to treat moon shots as if it were a bright day, so an ISO of 100 (or lower ) will help with detail, and a small aperture (f8 or higher) will give you great depth of field and then use the fastest shutter speed those parameters will allow (125th/sec is about right for a full moon). Avoid Auto-Exposure! your pics will come out grossly over exposed on most cams, it`s best to set your cam to fully manual where possible, and bracket your shots too (one F stop above and one bellow what you think will be correct).

for a Glow effect that`s mostly down to air conditions (haze), you`ll get the sharper pictures on clear Cold nights (winter is great), be careful with lens condensation though, and remember that prolonged cold can affect batteries!

 

if you don`t have any telephoto or zoom lenses, it Is possible to use a telescope and shoot from the eyepiece, although doing this freehand is a little hard, you can set up both on a tripod OR get an adapter where the cam mounts to the eyepeice.

camera shake is an issue when longer focal lengths, so a cable release is essential, and if you`re using an SLR, then make sure it`s on Mirror Lock-up mode, that`ll further reduce shake.

 

I used a Sigma SD10 X3 DSLR for all these shots, but the same will hold true for all similar cams.

[fredrik]

Thanks. Maybe I'll get a telescope one sometime when I'm bored and try it. Sounds fun

 

I have experimented little before by taking pictures of cells in a microscope from the eyepiece and it works fine too (whithout having a dedicatd computer microscope), the limit was the lensing of my simple microscope though. The camera resolution was more than sufficient, and then I even had a simple camera. I can imagine that a telescope + camera in mounts could be alot of fun.

 

But does it move that fast? I noticed that you used 0.5s exposure in one of those pics (I could see if you look into the file). If you use a few seconds does it really blur that much due to moon-motion? or is it rather atmoshperic-motion effects? I never tried this myself so I don't know I am just curious

 

/Fredrik

[YT2095]

yeah, half a sec was used as I was on F32 aperture and using a 2x teleconverter, it allows a little bit a margin for not having the focus 100% correct.

you could go 1 second or so without too much of a drag/trail effect, but I wouldn`t really go much longer.

I`v done 15 seconds with stars and they leave a very noticeable trail (about 3x longer than they are wide) so as you can see, the shorter the exposure the better.

I will also point out that on my cam I can use one of the auto-exposure settings and it works perfectly, but not All cams will do this.

 

as for the B&W, I did convert them to that as there isn`t much in the way of color detail in the RAW file anway, and B&W looks better imo.

 

edited to add: a way that would make the telescope idea a little easier would be to use one of these digital video cameras to the eyepiece, and trying to keep it as still as possible (don`t touch the telescope or tripod at all!), the s/ware that comes with most of these video cams will let you go through the "movie" frame at a time, and since it`s roughly 30 frames per second, you`ll find there will be some good frames in there perfect to print out or post

also, even with a modest zoom (on most digital cameras now) you should still be able to get a reasonable picture, good enough to make out the Copernicus and Tycho craters as well as the seas.

Edited October 16, 2008 by YT2095

[Jacques]

Hi nice pictures !

 

and a small aperture (f8 or higher) will give you great depth of field

Yes it give depper field, but for astronomical images you don't need need deep field, just adjust the focus at infinity, and try to get the smalless f ratio. Higher apperture will give less definition.

 

as for the B&W, I did convert them to that as there isn`t much in the way of color detail in the RAW file anway, and B&W looks better imo.

 

I was surprised when I saw that photo :

 

It was on Space weather site

[YT2095]

Yes it give depper field, but for astronomical images you don't need need deep field, just adjust the focus at infinity, and try to get the smalless f ratio. Higher apperture will give less definition.

 

Thanks, I`ll try that out next time it`s a good clear night, the reason I used a small aperture is that focus to infinity on my 300mm is too far the other way, it has to be a little bit less than infinity, reason; it`s a Pentax M42 mount and I use PK mounts, so the converter/Adapter I use makes the back of the lens a little further away (a bit like using a macro ring), thus throwing out the Infinity calibration a little, a smaller ap compensates for this.

But, I`ll try focusing it manually on a larger ap (it goes down to 4.5) although it may take a little time, and try your idea out, it should also let me use a faster shutter speed which will be nice

[Jacques]

OK I understand your problematic. I found that Depth of field calculator that can help you estimate the depth of field.

Faster shutter speed is great when you increase magnification. Small motion appear bigger. I did some shut with my scope coupled with an old reflex Minolta 101. cable release is essential like you said. I tried the trick of the hat for longer exposure (1 sec &+) In a dark site focus the object, put your hat in front of the objective to block all light going in the scope without toutching the scope, press the release button block it open, wait for the vibration to stop... remove the hat for the time of the exposure, put back the hat in front of the objective, close camera shutter.

[YT2095]

yeah, I do that regularly when I shoot film, those particular SLRs I have don`t have a "Mirror Up" function, the SD10 does though, so I can set up the shot, press the shutter release and the mirror goes up, then using the IR trigger the shutter is activated.

the effect is a vibration free picture as it`s the mirror lock-up that cases all the problems (my Pentax MTL3 is really bad for mirror lock-up and it`s quite noisy too).

the hat, or in my case a black card, also gets used when I shoot 120 film on Bulb setting for star trails.

I hope to get a few of those on here soon too

[Royston]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but here's our (my housemate and I) first attempt at some shots of the Moon's surface. We have a Gorilla Pod, but it was too small to get a good angle...still, as a first attempt, not too shabby...(Optics are a Tal-1, and a Lumix)

 

However, when I chose maximum resolution, we captured this image (see bottom picture)...I had no idea !!!

[arnolp04]

these are some great pics

[Dudde]

That's some pretty sweet detail you got goin' on there, and it looks like you've found life!

[lakmilis]

very nice snail.... exciting!!!

 

keep it up and enjoy the viewings )

[Royston]

and it looks like you've found life!

 

Albeit not intelligent life, but ho hum. Thanks all for the positive feedback, I'm going to give Saturn a go next time.

 

One question, I've read that images can be enhanced with astro-photography by layering many images over the top of each other, but I'm confused how that works, I would of thought that would make the image more blurred. I'll try and find a link where this has been done.

 

EDIT: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/PSALIGN.HTM right so this explains it...I'll need to look up noise to signal ratio, to understand why this is the case.

Edited April 4, 2009 by Snail

[lakmilis]

snail, could you give some further specs on those optics?

[chitrangda]

Beautiful pictures..Amazing...i have not got such clear pictures till date!

[Royston]

snail, could you give some further specs on those optics?

 

Sure, we used a Lumix FX35, with short exposure, as the moon obviously produces a lot of glare, plus taking a shot into an eye piece seems to make it worse.Tal-1 telescope, with a 25 mm super plossl for the first shot, and a 10 mm for the second IIRC.

[samtheflash82]

very nice! i tried taking some pictures of a lunar eclipse with a 200mm (biggest i had at the time) heres what i got:

 

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that image is cropped by the way. im going to try to get a nice telescope. also, does anyone have any advice on capturing the night sky? for example, how would i get the milky way arms to show very vividly? i know i need a long exposure but should i set a high ISO or lower ISO. also, does the f number make a difference when shooting broad views of the sky?

[YT2095]

a lower ISO film will give better detail and less grain, but will require a longer exposure, so you`ll need some way of compensating for the movement or make a compromise between grain and speed.

happily todays film grades are quite good! so anything up to 400ISO will be fine.

the lower the F number the better too, sadly most lens arrays of a long focal length with a low F number are Very expensive.

using a telescope however, I`m not sure how that would work out?

I`v never interfaced a cam to to one before, but plan on doing so later on in the year with a webcam/laptop/telescope USB setup, the few experiments of tried this year (not published) show promising results

[samtheflash82]

i had a teacher who had a whole setup with a digital camera and computer monitor via USB from one of those fancy autotracking telescopes.

[guppyman]

Very nice images, indeed

 

Good photography.

[Vindhya]

Exciting images and discussion too.

[Syntho-sis]

From my experience it's better to observe the moon when it is half full...You gain more clarity and fullness that way...thus a better picture.

 

I'm not sure if somebody already mentioned that..I'll hafta post some of my own moon pics

[cameron marical]

Does anyone have any other Celestial body pics? Im hungry for more...