Shoot the Moon.. Tycho..

[Fumesucker]

So I had my telescope out a few nights ago for the first time in several years. The mirrors are filthy but the images are still pretty good, we looked at the Moon, Venus, the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades (Subaru in Japanese) among other things.

I got this shot just holding my pocket cam up to the eyepiece and zooming in a bit, I can give the details of the shot if anyone is interested. The obvious crater in the center of the image is Tycho, it has the most dramatic ray system of any crater on the Moon, which means it's one of the youngest of the big craters..

[JeffR]

1. That's pretty damn nice.

And inspiring too. I'm going to have to try this with my telescope. It has a thread mount adapter for a camera, but since I went to digital, it's of no use anymore.

[Fumesucker]

2. Afocal photograpy with a digital camera is so much easier than the old way..

Afocal basically means through the eyepiece using the lens on the camera as you would your eye.

I've done this for a while, I have a really good shot of the Sun on a disk somewhere that I took with a Coolpix 995 through a scope with a solar filter on it by holding the camera up to the eyepiece. In that case I had a zoom eyepiece so I could match the exit pupil size to the size of the diaphragm in the camera so as not to waste any light.

Autofocusing and having a preview screen make this stuff not much harder than regular terrestrial photography.

Thanks for the praise BTW..

Here's another shot I took at the same time, this is at roughly 1/3 the magnification of the previous one and shows the whole Moon. I kind of cheated on this one and converted it to b/w since it had a touch of chromatic aberration around the limb of the Moon. Tycho is at 9 o'clock..

[NV Whino]

3. Wow, I'm going to try something like that with my point and shoot.

Could be interesting.

[Mira]

4. Please report on the progress

:) :)

[Fumesucker]

5. You can do this through binoculars too..

A decent set of binoculars combined with a digital camera with a good zoom lens will get you more magnification than you might imagine.

[NV Whino]

6. That's what I'm going to try

since I don't have a telescope.

[Mira]

8. And there I thought you were being facetious. I responded thinking it was a joke.

See why I come here, I learn exponentially every day just by watching and making a fool of myself.
:)

[Fumesucker]

9. I wouldn't lead people astray on something like that..

I have a rather biting sense of humor but I hold it in check pretty much somewhere like this where we are here to share and learn/teach.

Binoculars are just a pair of small telescopes as far as the camera or your eye is concerned.

I've actually made a little rig before to hold camera and binoculars aligned together and mount on a tripod. A chunk of plywood, some screws and some rubber bands, shims and so forth.

[Mira]

10. Really amazing, but makes perfect sense ! I rig stuff all the time, so I can easily

follow. Thanks - great ideas.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. That's amazing.

What a fabulous shot. !

[Maeryanne]

11. That is stunning

it reminds me of the detail on a sea egg/kina ~ just magical! I am reading and learning :)

Was it taken on the first night of the Full Moon?

:popcorn:

[Fumesucker]

12. No, full Moon is actually a bad time to shoot for most purposes..

Essentially full Moon is like on camera direct flash, it gives no shadows to show relief since the Sun is directly behind you at full Moon. Think of it as taking a portrait, on camera flash leaves a kind of flat look while having the light source off to one side shows depth and detail through shadows. On the Moon shadows are always sharp since there is no atmosphere to diffuse and soften the light.

The best detail is shown at that point between light and dark, it's called "the terminator" in astronomer speak. Most of the features on the Moon are low and rounded which requires a fairly oblique light source to show any detail in them. Recall the pictures of the astronauts on the Moon, there were no jagged peaks in the background, just rounded hills.

I don't have anyone in real life who is particularly interested in learning this stuff from me so having an online audience is personally rewarding, I really appreciate the positive comments.

[Maeryanne]

13. Wow, I think that's really inneresting ...

and I know of at least one other here ~ Kentauros, who has a Birthday on Friday 13! :party: ~ and he has a passion for night time photography :) It is a subject I do not know very much about, as is the technical side of taking any pictures, really! I understand some of your techspeak, and I do appreciate your patience in teaching what you know :)

The oblique light I understand, my example is when I have photographed the gorgeous sand ridges in first light, so the angel of light throws shadows that seem to make the folds stand up, and I see a very graphic image of light and dark wavy lines. I could post one here, yet I don't know how to do that yet :)

:popcorn: