Q. Why would you stack 12 images? Do you move the camera between shots?
I believe 'stacking' photos helps add the detail to the picture. The camera does not need to be attached to the scope and I think you pick a point and the software does the rest. There is a thread here somewhere with more details.
I'm just about to set up my 6" Newtonian and hope there is no cloud tonight. Any tips on camera settings Michael?
edited as I forgot the reason I was here...
Great shots btw.
James, what a stunning image, terrific work. I am amazed at the resolution of the image and the detail of the lunar craters, just spectacular.
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Andi, it has been my experience to use a much higher exposure then I would have expected in order to get the best exposure results. I have used 1/60, 1/125, and 1/250 for the shutter speed and due to the nature of my set up, there is no adjustment for the aperture, which is fixed for me a f11.0. A shutter speed of 1/125th has been typical for an image similar to James' result.
By the way, I place the camera into the "spot" metering mode, which is heavily centre-weighted for a Nikon. I can not say what you need to do for the Minolta.
Please share your results with us, I am curious to see how well it works with this telescope.
The moon is quite hard to expose correctly using a built in meter, but quite easy to work out what the exposure should be.
You can just use the sunny 16 rule and maybe go half a stop brighter to keep the final image slightly lighter than mid grey - after all the moon is just a big old grey rock in full sunlight.
I do have a question or two about stacking - do you focus different areas of the moon in different shots? Or is it all generally the same focus...I've found in my quickie setup that if I get the craters in focus the rest is not sharp...of course, not much is really that sharp in mine since I've been shooting through a $15 telescope by hand holding my 5050-z in super macro mode...but, to people that haven't seen your pics, mine look pretty good!
Really nice, But I still don`t see the Stars and Stripes firmly planted there!I am curious if any earth bound telescope could? Mount Palomar or such? Now thats optics!!
Really nice, But I still don`t see the Stars and Stripes firmly planted there!I am curious if any earth bound telescope could? Mount Palomar or such? Now thats optics!!
From what I have been told no earth based telescop can see the flag or other man made objects left on the moon.
and most of my shots were made using a shutter speed of 1/250 or 1/180, when the moon is full you will want to use something a bit faster.
my scope is a F/10 but I used my F6.3 focal reducer to get the entire moon in the frame of my D60, with out the reducer the moon will over fill the frame and about 1/4 of the moon is not in the shot.
No I dont focus on differet areas of the moon,I know the craters towards the outher edge are a bit out of focus on my shot.
Also I did some shots using my Sony707, I will post some samples later on
Really nice, But I still don`t see the Stars and Stripes firmly planted there!I am curious if any earth bound telescope could? Mount Palomar or such? Now thats optics!!
Of course not...since the lunar landing prolly never happened anyway. New evidence here.
Really nice, But I still don`t see the Stars and Stripes firmly planted there!I am curious if any earth bound telescope could? Mount Palomar or such? Now thats optics!!
Of course not...since the lunar landing prolly never happened anyway. New evidence here.
P
ps hehe
LOL
Nice picture James!
Acording to Pedro maybe its held up there by string?LOL
Please share your results with us, I am curious to see how well it works with this telescope.
Thanks for the tips Michael, too much cloud for tonight but rest assured I'll be posting when I get the chance. I'll be starting hand held and if the results look positive I'll look for a decent adapter.
Is moon photography possible without fancy equipment (besides a telescope, I mean)? Can I improvise or make the equipment?
if you get a teleconverter you can get a decent shot of the moon, I have the sony 707 and the Sony VCL-HGD1758 teleconversion lens, and when you use the 5x zoom + digital zoom and the max image size of 5mp, plus a tripod you can get a decent shot of the moon, but you may need to take many shots and stack them to get sharper detail.
