The Moon - a ‘gateway drug’ into astrophography
If you want to try astrophotography, the moon is a great place to start. You can take a picture of our nearest neighbour even in heavily light polluted skies because it is so bright and forgiving. You can even grab its image in full daylight, like the photo below, which was one of the first astrophotos I took. It’s such an easy and rewarding target. Follow it through its phases. The quarter moon is my favourite as the sideways-on sunlight emphasises the relief and craters.
For my mineral moon image below, I took 162 frames and stacked the best 30% using software called Autostakkert. I added an outer glow from an overexposed frame.
Detail in the moon
In 1971 astronaut Jim Irwin drove a rover around the lunar surface. How much fun would that be?
He was photographed in front of Mons Hadley, a peak in the Montes Apenninus mountain range that can be clearly picked out in my image taken at 900mm focal length.
Clouds are usually the enemy of the astrophotographer. I have tried shaking my fist at them but not even that makes them go away. Better to make friends with them and when it comes to moon shots, they can be used to create a spooky mood.
Using reflections across water is another way of creating interest. In my example the moon needed a faster exposure than the landscape or it would have been blown out. So I took a separate image of the moon from the same spot and positioned it over the blown out moon in landscape shot.
