![]() ![]() One remaining concern I had was vibrations causing a soft image. Now all I needed to do (that night, anyway) was capture the raw materials. I shot a few tests and decided that 1/2 second at ISO 3200 resulted in a moon that would be sharp enough to look good. I also wanted a lower ISO for the moon so it wouldn’t look too noisy against the clean, noise-stacked stars. Using a telephoto meant I needed to shoot even faster. ![]() With a wide-angle lens, I rarely shoot more than 10 or 15 seconds when the moon is in the frame. That’s why shooting even a 20-second astro-landscape exposure can result in the moon beginning to “stretch out” and look oblong. The moon moves quickly-a distance roughly equal to its diameter about every 2.5 minutes. It was time to calculate my moon exposure. This would make the final image appear as if I shot it at a lower, cleaner ISO.īecause the first solution would result in the moon both blowing out and moving considerably during the exposures, I would need to shoot a separate frame of just the moon and then layer that on top of the noise-stacked frame in Photoshop. So those were the two obstacles I needed to work around, and I chose two solutions:īecause freezing the stars required such a high ISO, I would need to noise-stack multiple frames. It also introduced a problem with the moon exposure: At 1/2 to 1 second at ISO 51,200, the moon would blow out. That would require an ISO of 51,200, and that would produce way more noise than would be acceptable. With a 300mm lens, a quick check of the Spot Stars calculator in PhotoPills revealed that I could use a shutter speed of only 1/2 to 1 second before my stars would begin to trail (Figure 2). The trouble with telephoto lenses at night is that unless you’re using a hefty tracker, shooting star points is nearly impossible with one exposure. I unpacked the longest lens I own, a Nikon 300mm f/2.8-a lens not quite long enough to fill the frame with the moon, but long enough so the moon would be more than just a red dot in the sky. By necessity, this would be a moon portrait, not a moonscape. She was enthralled-enough so that I knew I had time for a photo.īut from the overlook, I had no foreground worth shooting. We set up her telescope, she promptly located the moon in the eyepiece, and the experience quickly became pretty freakin’ cool. So, instead, we meandered up the parkway until the moon finally started to hide in Earth’s shadow, and then pulled into an overlook. But these things didn’t hold her interest long enough. We watched the water flowing over the dam and listened for noises in the woods and guessed what made them. ![]() We tried hunting for frogs, then hunting for spiders, then spotting fireflies. Maggie was bored waiting for the eclipse. Which of my favorite landscapes would be good for a moon photo at that particular time and date? I settled on Price Lake, as I could see that during totality the moon would be drifting over the tree line on the southeastern shore (Figure 1).Īlas, all good plans need a backup, especially when traveling with a kid. But PhotoPills scouting was still necessary because I needed to know where the moon would be during totality. I know the area well, as I’ve shot there many times (including with two National Parks at Night workshops). So we ventured to one of my favorite sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway, me toting my cameras, she toting the telescope that her grandmother and aunt had given her for Christmas. Still, I’m never surprised when she wants to experience a celestial event-such as when she asked if we could go somewhere to see the total lunar eclipse last spring. In 2017 we road-tripped to see the solar eclipse, which she promptly labeled “the best thing I’ve ever done.” She was only 4, but I couldn’t disagree that the memory would remain on that list forever.Īs Maggie has grown older (she’s 9 now) that interest has waned a little, somewhat supplanted by friends and music and drawing and painting and reading and swimming and making videos and any of the other hundred things that occupy her agile mind. On summer nights she would lay a blanket on the grass outside, hone in on stars with my laser pointer, and ask me to look up their names in a sky-view app. She could name the planets (in order) when she was 3. Since she was little, my daughter Maggie has been interested in astronomy. See the end of the post for more information. Note: We’re running this blog post today because tonight’s skies will feature the world’s last total lunar eclipse until the spring of 2025. ![]()
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