The Moon Tonight

[ash]

Decided to have a go at the moon tonight, it was clear and Thomas was excited about using his new telescope that he got for christmas.

My sigma 120-400 os has not seen much light since I purchased it, and I gave it a squert of adrenelin with a 2x converter. This together with the dx crop factor of my new d90 , which Im very impressed with , gave a 35mm eq of 1200mm.

I think Ive only attempted the moon once before with my old A2, which the pics I think I posted on here but that would be on the old forum.

Cropped in elements and I added a red filter and upped the contrast to try and bring out the details.

Ive searched on google and there are some amazing pics of the moon, so mine is by no means on apar, but im proud of what Ive acheived.

A tripod is a bit restrictive so I rested the cam and lens on a cushion on the window bottom, the os of the sigma lens really came into its own at this focal length.

cheers
Ash.

[ekkl]

Re: The Moon Tonight

Hi Ash, that is a great picture of the moon. It is a little washed out in places but that can't be helped as it is a very difficult object to capture. I think you have done well there.

Tonight Mars was just next to it and looking brilliant. I got my (Astro) binoculars out and had a look, I couldn't resist as the (winter) sky was so clear although I am in the middle of Brighton with loads of light so I made the best of it.

I also showed my 9yr old daughter the Andromeda Galaxy and the Orion Nebula for the first time. Her audible gasps where a real pleasure when she spotted them both. (she is doing a project at school to do with astronomy so she knew Mars would be closest at 9pm which is what she was looking out for but didn't expect the bonus I showed her).

I would love to take pictures through my telescope but taking images every two seconds and stacking them just doesn't appeal to me although I do appreciate how well these guys who do it properly work.

Anyhow, I must boring you all now but I think you should be over the moon with that picture (see what I done there)

Nice capture

[Guest]

Re: The Moon Tonight

A splendid picture Ash. How long an exposure did you give. I would expect to see some blurring if it was a time exposure and you were only using camera etc setup on a cushion. !!

[ash]

Re: The Moon Tonight

Hi Dennis, sorry I should have explained my settings, which will probably surprise some people, iso 1000, 1000 sec, f18, manual focus. The lens I used has an optical stabiliser, so this allowed me a bit more freedom of movement on top of a cushion. I tried it without the stabiliser and I could not keep it still enough to get a picture.
cheers
Ash.

[Ian]

Re: The Moon Tonight

A splendid picture Ash. How long an exposure did you give. I would expect to see some blurring if it was a time exposure and you were only using camera etc setup on a cushion. !!

Hi Dennis, the moon is actually incredibly bright and even at f/8 at full moon you will get an exposure in the area of 1/100th at ISO 100.

Ian