1st attempt at looking for the man in the moon

[Guest Mu11ett]

28/01/2013

 

Decided I would try to capture a pic of the "big"ol' Moon right before bed time !!! Mrs wasn't happy that's for sure but that's another story.

 

I armed myself with my ever faithful Nikon D3 and a Sigma 170 - 500mm lens, not the fastest piece of glass out there I know but the Moon was bright so a fast lens may not be critical.

 

After several (200) pics later, all of which were taken hand held, the attached is my best effort.

 

I would have liked to have taken 200+ and stacked them but, as yet, I have no sidereal mount .. Mark Harper if you still have the Merlin give me a shout !!

 

Anyway the pic hasn't turned out to my expectations, but I will try harder !!

 

Any critic always welcome 

 

 

[Guest Eddy]

At least its not overexposed, a good start.

What iso and shutter speed did you use?

The merlin aint up for holding such a big lens in my opinion, plus you are limited to very short exposures as its an alt/az mount

[Brantuk]

Nice shot Manny

 

For moon and planets you'd use a slow scope (or camera lens) rather than a fast one. There's plenty of light cos it's so near (relatively speaking of course).

[catman161]

That's a nice capture-some nice detail. Well done

[Guest Mu11ett]

I meant to put the details up....I did experiment with various settings all the way up to 1/2000 sec @f/11

 

this pic was:-

f-stop - f/20

shutter speed - 1/800 sec at a stupidly high

ISO of 1000 at a

focal length of 500mm this could account of the apparent noise (although the D3 is a great performer on the noise department ) and maybe being a little over zealous in photoshop. It has been cropped as it didn't fill the view finder lol

 

"Manny" 

[Guest Mu11ett]

Eddy_j1

 

thanks for the heads up regarding the Merlin and possible weight issues looks like I may have to look at something a bit more expensive lol