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Main Page » astrophotography

Monday, August 18

Looking at the moon again

by Mike on Mon 18 Aug 2008 11:51 PM EDT

The clear evening skies we've had around these parts have served to remind me of my occasional interest in astrophotography. The other night, I tried to get some new shots of the moon and it took a while, but I ended up with one or two good shots. The results weren't great, but they were more or less okay given my rather crude and cumbersome setup.

The last time I took some pictures of the moon was back in September 2007. Just like my previous effort, I used my dad's old Empire telescope with a Kodak EasyShare C875 to snap my new pictures. The moon has an almost yellowish appearance in my most recent photos. I am not sure of the reason for this, but I decided not to make any major adjustments with the exception of some minor sharpening and a tweak of the contrast on the best photo, which is presented below.

Full moon, taken the night of August 17, 2008

Detail of the above picture

Comments (2) | Permanent Link | Cosmos

Sunday, September 23

Looking at the moon

by Mike on Sun 23 Sep 2007 04:06 PM EDT

For some time now, I have wanted to try my hand at amateur astrophotography. I still have my dad's old Empire telescope that is probably as old as I am or close to it, but I had misplaced the eyepieces a while back. I finally found them a few days ago and I was pretty excited about having a chance to set up the telescope in the back yard and look at the moon. I looked at some camera/telescope mounting hardware and adapters on the Internet but they are pretty expensive and given the age of the telescope, I have been pretty hesitant to invest in any attachments. On at least a few web sites, I have read about folks taking some halfway decent pictures by just holding a camera up to the eyepiece and I figured it was worth a try. So after a long day yesterday, I set up the telescope in the back yard and for about an hour, I gave it my best shot. It was a relatively clear night and I think the moon was in the waxing gibbous phase.

I used a 40 mm eyepiece with our Kodak EasyShare C875 camera. The camera is an 8 megapixel camera and I had the best results using the "distant scenery" and "closer than 28 inches" manual settings with the flash turned off. It's a pretty tricky thing to adjust the telescope focus and the camera to get a sharp, focused picture. I also learned that it's not possible to smoke a cigar and fiddle with the camera and telescope all at the same time. It requires a steady hand when using the camera's manual settings because the slightest movement results in a blurry photo. The picture below is the best of approximately 40 attempts between 11 PM and 12 AM last night. I did sharpen the image in iPhoto a bit which adds some good definition to the craters on the right edge. I think it's a good first effort and I am hoping to take some better pictures in the future.

** I changed the orientation of the photo and the lunar phase info with some help from my dad. Thanks Dad!