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moon shots

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Started 3 years ago by mcammer
Latest reply from alansayss
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mcammer

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I've been giving myself homework assignments to try to improve my photography. Spurred on by tcoles recent thread about unsharp images, I tried some lunar photos. It's harder than I thought! Hats off to Adam and Phil and Ridgeback for their great shots on the PAD forum. Here are my notes.

Lens matters. I used a 70-300 VR1 on my D5000. Even at 300mm, the moon wasn't quite 500 pixels across. 500mm on DX would be nice. (Can't say what's due to low resolution, a soft lens, and poor technique though)

Exposure is critical. Spot metering really helps. Any exposure averaged out over the whole sky will blow out detail on the moon. I used exposure bracketing and -1 stop compensation.

The right aperture helps. I tried the range and had the best results with f/8.

I'm not sure about shutter speed. I used 1/320 as minimum, but that resulted in higher ISO settings. If I go out again, I'm going to try lower ISO and longer shutters.

Focus is tough. I tried manual focus but I was just guessing at it really. What I could see through the viewfinder (or live view) would put things close, but the moon was too small to figure out where dead on was. It was hard to make tiny adjustments without obviously jiggling the camera (on tripod, triggered by remote release). Autofocus ended up being more consistent.

Might be the time & place. I just went out on my front porch and shot over the street lights. A cold clear night in the country might be better.

This what I got. C+ at best.

Posted 3 years ago #
kyoshinikon

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Start by shooting as the moon is just rising at night and shoot manual or program... the others usually don't work (aperture sometimes does). Sadly zooms aren't always sharp when shooting a subject like the moon because of the contrast and light involved.

To fill the frame you are also going to need more zoom like a 400mm, so get a cheap TC

Posted 3 years ago #
tcole1983

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Looks decent to me. I have been wanting to get back out and try some other modes and take some more time. It was cold the one night I tried and I didn't stay out too long.

Posted 3 years ago #
gelu88

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very nice. i attempted some moon shots with my 55-200, but it's quite difficult.

i have a 4 inch telescope and i recently got a F-mount adapter. i'll see what kind of shots i can get. I managed to resolve the rings of saturn, so i'm optimistic.

Posted 3 years ago #
The Ridgeback

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Nice shot.
Up your iso to at least 800, and take as many photos as you can, (dont worry about noise, see below)
The faster the shutter speed the better.

Also try and shoot the moon when its at its highest.
If you watch the moon over the period of the year you will notice it follows different paths, some months it will be lower to the horizon, others it will be quite high.

The higher the moon, the less atmosphere you are shooting through. Also, try and take the photos late in to the night, after the atmosphere has had time to cool down and stop
twinkling (Scintillation).

1) Take as many photos as possible in one go. (some parts of the image will be pinsharp whilst others will be slightly blured (Scintillation effects), the more the merrier. 300-400 is normally good.
2) take bias frames. (cover the lens and set the speed to 1/4000 or higher) take between 20-50
3) Dark frames (These are not normally needed as its not a long exposure)
4) Take a flat frame (point camera at a white evenly lit wall/paper and take between 10-20 images) this will remove noise from dust and dirt on the lens/ccd ect.

Use some astronomy software like, Deep sky stacker or registax, by using all these frames it will combine the images and you will loose nearly all the noise from your images, as well as end up having a better image.
Welcome to the steep learning curve of astronomical imaging.

Mac.

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Wow, thanks for the tips, Mac. I'm going to have to try this. Is any of that software free?

Posted 3 years ago #
The Ridgeback

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yup, most of the astronomy stacking software is free.

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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Some point & shoots already do the image stacking in-camera for you.

Taken with a Sony point & shoot, handheld. I can't wait until this technology gets put inside a DSLR!

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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The Ridgeback said:
yup, most of the astronomy stacking software is free.

I know what I'm doing the next time the sky is clear. Thanks again. Does it handle wide angle stuff pretty well? What if I had a 20 degree view and I track the part of the sky I'm interested in?

Posted 3 years ago #
tcole1983

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They look better then mine :) As you notice I didn't put mine on my flickr page ;) Next full moon isn't until the 29th or so...looks like I will have to wait.

Posted 3 years ago #
PBrigido

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I think you have the right idea. I agree with the ISO settings Ridgeback suggested.

I have 2 examples when I was trying to do the same thing last fall. The first time I tried it I didn't have VR on my 50-500 Sigma lens and I was shooting on my deck in the back yard. Big mistake. Subtle vibrations really created a lack of detail. Not to mention I should have shot a half moon instead of full. Much more detaul shows with a half-moon shot. Here is the result.

I got smarter the next time. I went out to my driveway and took some shots of the half-moon. They turned out much better. I couldn't believe the detail in the full size shot.

Posted 3 years ago #
gelu88

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wow, very nice. So this was taken at 500mm?

Posted 3 years ago #
PBrigido

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actually I had the 1.4 TC on...so I believe it was around 700mm or so.

Posted 3 years ago #
The Ridgeback

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The full moon is probably the worst time to actually take any images, although if your starting its not a bad point, the best times are Waning Gibbous and Waxing Gibbous. (half for the non technical)
you get much more detail at the edges.

If you want a full frame image of the moon, then you will need to use a telescope. or failing that double up your tele-convertors so you end up with a focal length of around 2000 to 2500 mm.

Jonnyapple, the question regarding the wide angle.
The astro software will take any image!! and will stack them, so it dosent matter if you have a nice 50mm wide field or a very small 2000mm piece of the sky.
Some software will find the stars and match them. Others will allow you to select different parts of the image and then stack them. (i.e craters on the moon for alignment).
Dont forget though if your doing any astronomy photography, you will get field rotation as the earth rotates. you also get an effect on the moon called Liberation.

This can vary from as small as a few seconds upto about 30 seconds before the effects are visible.

Have a look at our astronomical gallery as well as our forum, might give you some idea of what you are actually up against should you wish to delve into this.

astronomical gallery

Mac

Posted 3 years ago #
gelu88

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I tried my hand at a moon shot, i took 200 jpeg images, 1/1000 f/5.6 at 200mm with my 55-200.

stacked with registax

The moon is about 300 pixels across.

Here are the before and afters

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3401/4556561195_1af0997564_o.jpg</img>

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3604/4557188794_bd3fb166f6_o.jpg</img>

Posted 3 years ago #
mcammer

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My latest efforts below. Single shots, no stacking. Updating my own tips above, I've gone fully Manual on exposure & focus--it feels so liberating! Using magnified Live View to focus really helps. Loving the flexible back screen of the D5000 too.

Posted 3 years ago #
mcammer

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Meant to also comment on gelu's pics. It must be very tough to get good base shots with (only) a 200mm lens. And that must create trouble for the stacking software. I see a ghost image shifted down to 5 o'clock in your after image.

Did you ever get anything going with your telescope? I've been dying to try something bigger & better....

Posted 3 years ago #
The Ridgeback

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Tip for focusing on astronomical objects.
Make yourself a hartmann mask fantastic little devices and take most of the guesswork out of focusing.
If the image is out of focus you have multiple images of the object. when its in focus you have just one.
Of if you are using a large piece of glass try using a bahtinov Mask
Works best for pinpoint light sources, but can be used on other objects.

Mac.

Posted 3 years ago #
gelu88

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i only noticed the shadow after you mentioned it. I I left all the Registax settings on auto, i'm sure some of the dozens of sliders and settings can help with that.

Here is my best single shot through the telescope (Celestron 4.5" f/9 with a 1000m mirror).

The magnification great(i did no cropping), but it was slightly cloudy sky with fast moving clouds, and i shot at ISO 400 1/30th. so the clouds washed alot of detail out.

If i had done 800 1/60 or 1600 1/120 i would have gotten clearer results.

Also i'm pretty sure stacking would really make things much better. The full res flickr image shows some promising details.

One question for you anyone familiar with registax, i used jpegs both times i tried to make an image as RAWs fill my D60's buffer very fast. Will the results be much better if i go RAW? many other guides and forums suggest it. though they also say nikon does some preprocessing that makes it less useful.

Posted 3 years ago #
The Ridgeback

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Raws are better however Nikon Raws are processed, compared to Canon Raws which are unprocessed, which is a bit of a problem when doing astronomical work. A Jpeg always has some of the data removed, its just the way its stored

The more images you stack the better the image will be as the software can work out which images can be used, i would stick to jpegs until you are happy with the results, and then change to raws. If you have 800, you might find that 50 of them will contain clouds, aircraft trails,slightly blury ect, so you can set the software to only use the top 80% of the images.

I would try and up the shutter speed, you will be surprised how much camera shake is introduced in to the images by the mirror going up. If you have a mirror up function use that and allow 3-4 seconds for the camera shake to die down.

Mac.

Posted 3 years ago #
gelu88

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Thanks, thats what i figured from reading around.

next time i hope ill get clear skies, i figure the increased brightness could double my shutter speed. Also, i think ill try shooting underexposed a bit more, adding to shutter speed.

the f/9 really hurts, the stacked image at 200mm was at 5.6 1/1000 with no clouds. Clear skies should really help.

Posted 3 years ago #
gelu88

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another question about stacking. should i shoot underexposed, correct exposure in LR, then stack with registax? or should i give registax the underexposed pics and correct the final output.

I guess it depends on how the program works, which i don't know.

Posted 3 years ago #
The Ridgeback

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I would get registax to stack the images first, and then do your post processing.
That way you have just one file to work with, otherwise you have to process 800 images and then stack them. By stacking them you increase the Signal to noise ratio, so when you do your post processing the image should remain quite noise free.

You can do some of the processing in registax, by playing with the wavelets you can tease out the detail within the different brightness bands. Think of it as a graphic equaliser for images. Then save it as a 16bit, tiff and then post process in photoshop. by keeping it 16bit and processing it you can tease loads of detail out before changing to 8bit.

Mac.

Posted 3 years ago #
tcole1983

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I am still waiting. I has been cold at nights and or cloudy every time I thought about going out. Supposed to rain all weekend too :(

Posted 3 years ago #
jonnyapple

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Is anyone here that's in North America going to photograph the lunar eclipse tonight? I guess it starts at 1:32 am Eastern Time and lasts for a little over an hour (So if it's too cold to spend an hour outside, 2:00 am is a good bet). It's looking like I'll have cloud cover, but I'll see if I can get anything.

Posted 2 years ago #