 | "The
Moon is so big and bright, why not shoot from home? I continued my
lunar experiments from my own front yard on the night of September 17,
2010 -- the waxing Gibbous Moon. This was the best of the lot, color
desaturated in Adobe Photoshop
-- my Letha House photos show color from its low elevation after
moonrise." Canon EOS 50D: ISO 400, 1/400 sec., Meade LXD75 achromatic
f/8 refracting telescope: 1,219 mm. September 17, 2010, 10:09 PM. Photo
by James Guilford. |
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Moon... both cursed and loved by amateur astronomers worldwide. It
brought an early end to deep sky observing at Letha House Park the
night of this photograph but, itself, made a great subject for viewing
and photographing. This was during the lunar waning gibbous phase. Canon EOS 50D: ISO 400, 1/400 sec., Meade LXD75
achromatic f/8 refracting telescope: 1,219 mm. August 28, 2010, 10:54
PM. Photo by James Guilford. |
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February
20, 2008 Total Lunar Eclipse. "Couldn't believe our luck! The last
total lunar eclipse visible until 2010, and it was clear! Sure it was
cold, but what a beautiful sight as the Moon turned a beautiful
copper-orange, floating near Saturn and Rigel. Camera: Canon 400D;
Lens: Sigma 18 -200 mm; ISO 400 @ f/6; Bogen- Manfrotto tripod. I used Images Plus to create a sequence of bracketed shots ahead of time, which then ran the camera automatically. Processing: Images Plus; Photoshop CS was used to create the composite." -- Lynn M. Paul |
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August
28, 2007 Total Lunar Eclipse. At about 4:45 AM, I stepped out on to our
western-facing porch and carried my camera, already mounted to its
tripod, down to the walk. From there I shot my first photos of the
mostly-bright Moon. I worked out the best exposure settings and tested
the focus. Next I moved to the court at the end of our driveway apron,
set up the tripod there, shot a few more images. From there I swung the
camera around and got a few images of Orion rising above the trees...
long time, old friend! Those shots, along with one of the Pleiades and
neighboring Hyades star cluster, came out surprisingly well.
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Hiking
from home to a better vantage point, I watched the Moon pass from
penumbra brightness to the depths of Earth's central shadow or umbra.
On a knoll beside a North Royalton nursing home, overlooking the police
station and the Columbia River valley beyond, I set up to stay til the
end. Staff on break from the nursing home called across in the morning
darkness, "is there a lunar eclipse?" "Yep," I yelled back, "and it's
nearly in totality now!" "Wow, I thought it was," they answered after
taking a peek, "but I didn't hear about it on the news."
Sunrise
erased the last traces of the spectacle from sight a little after 6:00
AM Tuesday, August 28. Canon Digital Rebel XT with Tamron 18-200mm zoom
lens; ISO 400.
-- James Guilford
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This photo of Earth's Moon
was made on July 21, 2007 at about 8:45 PM (in bright twilight) using a
combination of technologies spanning a century. The image was recorded
by a digital single-lens reflex camera mounted at the focus of a
telescope more than 100 years old at the Stephens Memorial Observatory
of Hiram College. Optics of the telescope are a 9-inch uncoated
achromatic doublet made by the John Brashear Company ca. 1900 -- there
is visible color fringing along the brilliant limb of Luna but a
high-quality visual image was delivered even under the
less-than-perfect conditions of this Saturday night. In the center of
the picture the dark lunar "sea," Mare Serenitatis and, just below it, Mare Tranquillitatis.
It was on the "Sea of Tranquility" 38 years ago this month that humans,
for the first time, set foot on Earth's nearest neighbor. The camera is
a Canon Digital Rebel XT mounted to the Warner and Swasey telescope
using a 2-inch adapter and T-Mount. Exposure was 1/60th of a second at
ISO 400. -- James Guilford |
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Exciting views of the Moon
don't necessarily require high-end cameras and telescopes. Kevin Moore
writes, "this picture of the moon at about half phase and overhead
(was) taken with a Celestron three-inch refractor with 1,000 mm focal
length. We used a Fuji Digital A210 freehand (afocal projection) on
March 27, 2007, at around 8 PM. It was very warm this night, (in the
70s ?) for pre-spring temps. Using a 25 mm poss. eye piece and the zoom
on the camera. It was like a built-in Barlow." This close-up view of
the Moon's northeast quadrant includes the Sea of Serenity, Sea of
Tranquility, other maria, and a portion of the lunar Alpines. It
happens to include the landing sites for Apollo 11, 15, and 17. Click image to see a wider view taken the same night. |
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April
26, 2006 -- I wanted to try out my new T-mount and camera adapter with
my telescope and Canon Digital Rebel XT. I set up my 90 mm refractor
with type-2 full-aperture solar filter on my balcony to see what I
could get. The atmosphere was cloudless but noticeably unsteady as I
focused on our nearby star. At about 10:45 AM, shutter speed 1/25
second, using eyepiece projection and 12.4 mm eyepiece I got some
interesting if not-too-sharp images of large sunspot 875 and sunspot
group 876. Viewing the image on the computer monitor I can see hints of
granulation on the sun's surface but no detail in the sun spots
themselves. Not bad for a first try at solar astrophotography! -- James
Guilford |
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On
December 4, after what seemed an eternity of cloudy and snowy nights,
the skies cleared at sunset. The Moon and Venus, very close together
tonight, in conjunction, shown brilliantly through the clearing
twilight sky. Terribly cold (22F degrees) it hurt to hold on to the
metal tripod! Later in the month I shot a view of decorated Christmas
trees across an expanse of snow and put together this composite. Fuji
FinePix S7000 digital camera: 1/4 second, f/3.1, 400 ISO, Moon/Venus
conjunction at 6:10 PM. -- James Guilford, North Royalton |
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October
2004 Lunar Eclipse Montage created by Matt Franduto: "this was taken
from by back yard in Strongsville, Ohio. I used a Meade ETX-70 with a
Minolta Dimage 7i digital camera. The camera and scope were attached
using the T-ring adapter from Scopetronix. The eclipsing shots were
.7-second exposure. The full Moon at the end used 1/45-second exposure.
The photos were assembled using Photoshop 7."
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Total lunar eclipse of Oct. 27-28, 2004 -- composite sequence by Wayne Cukras |
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Lunar Eclipse of Oct. 27-28, 2004
Conditions
in Hinckley, Ohio were cloudy during the penumbra phase but improved to
clear skies during totality. One of the many images taken during the
eclipse is this image acquired using a Meade 14" LX200 GPS telescope
and Lumicon focal reducer: 6 sec. exposure at f/5 on Kodak E-200 slide
film. -- Joe Golias
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My
efforts at lunar digital astrophotography were inspired by the
approaching total lunar eclipse. I bought a Philips ToUcam and did some
pre-eclipse experiments. I was pleased and excited by the test shots
--all single frame-grabs, no stacking-- that I did Oct. 25, 2004 as
experiments for a webcast. The webcast came off okay but could've been
better -- I plan to be truly ready for the next one! This shot is my
favorite of the bunch showing Mare Humorum, Mare Nubium, with Crater
Tycho (lower right). The telescope is a Meade 390 f/11 refractor. --
James Guilford |
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"This
image was taken from my driveway under severe light polluted skies two
days after the full moon. {October 5, 2004} It was captured on my rig
using a Nikon FG camera body at the prime focus of a Meade 8" SCT on a
GEM mount. The exposure is 1/250th sec. on Fuji Film from Marcs.
(nothing fancy) -- Dale Harder |
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Aruba
Eclipse Series: This is a digitized composite of a series of shots
taken of the 1998 total eclipse of the Sun from Baby Beach in Aruba.
All photographs were taken using a 150mm Maksutov Spotting scope on a
tripod. Totality lasted approximately 3 minutes, but seemed to last
only a few seconds. Next time, says photographer Lon Dittrick, he'll
just run a video camera, sit in a lounge chair, celebrate with a glass
of wine, and enjoy the show!
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