Questions about Shooting the Supermoon

[jrista]

1. You have time before Sunday to practice the shot, so I'd check where it's rising this evening, or Saturday and try some shots to gve you an idea of the best set up for you. I use Stellarium (freeware, excellent) if I'm planning pictures involving astral bodies other than the sun. There won't be enough size difference to mess up approximations of this sort.

+1 on Stellarium, too, it's a perfect companion to The Photographer's Ephemeris and I just bought the paid version for my Android.

Personally, I use WorldWide Telescope from Microsoft Research. Full color, high resolution sky survey (excellent for astrophotography), and some cool 3D mapping of the solar system:

 

[mackguyver]

Jon, I was hoping our resident Starman would reply, so thank you for the additional details and I'm sure you'll blow us away with your photos if you shoot on Sunday!

 

[jrista]

Jon, I was hoping our resident Starman would reply, so thank you for the additional details and I'm sure you'll blow us away with your photos if you shoot on Sunday!

I hope I'll be able to. It's been pretty stormy here lately, so I don't know if the sky will be clear. I want to get a tracked 1200mm f/8 shot if I can. I've done 1200mm before, but it is a PITA to focus, so I don't have anything to show for it yet. Now that I have the mount and BackyardEOS, it should be a lot easier to focus, since I won't have to touch the camera or the lens (I control it all remotely from my computer right here in my house. )

I also recently picked up a QHY5L-II high speed, ultra high resolution 75% Q.E. planetary CCD and guide camera. I use it for guiding normally, but it can also be used for planetary imaging. I want to figure out a way to attach it to my 600mm lens, and do some high speed video imaging so I can use that stacking technique. With the size and resolution of this camera, it would basically be like zooming in with a very, very long telescope at just one area of the moon's surface.

BTW, just a word of warning. The moon is going to be full at perigee, so there will be no shadow play on the surface. That actually doesn't make for the best moon photos. Full moon is a good time for "moody" photos, but not detail photos. You really want gibbous or smaller moons for detail photos, as then you have plenty of shadow on the surface to bring out detail and relief.

 

[jrista]

I did some moon imaging tonight at 1200mm, with the 5D III and 7D. Here is a high res (superresolution or "drizzle") of the last bit of shaded moon detail along the eastern edge. This was integrated in AutoStakkert! 2, from a 1000-frame video taken with my 7D at 1/100s f/8 ISO 200:

I could have probably gotten even more detail, but I had BackyardEOS configured incorrectly. It was only doing 5x zoom in the planetary imaging mode, when it can actually do up to 10x zoom. I ran out of time, the moon slipped behind the trees. I'll try again once the moon is in more of a waning gibbous phase, when it should have a lot more interesting detail with some shading.

Here are some full frames, comparing the resolving power of the 7D and 5D III:

 

[mackguyver]

Awesome shots, Jon! I wish I could say my night went the same way...but when I walked outside, the humidity was so high ~90% that my headlamp beam looked like it was cutting through smoke. The moon was blurry and the sky was partly cloudy. I wasn't able to get very far from the tree I was planning to silhouette as there are other trees in the way so the focus differences are way too much. I also tried a plain astophotograph and it came out awful.

I'd like to thank lintoni for the idea to do a practice run tonight. Tomorrow's set up (weather permitting) will be 100% different!

 

[applecider]

Supermoon all kinds of extenders and big white. I'm quite pleased with the resolution given that two 2x extenders were used. Eyeballing them I'd say they are comparable to jrista's thousand points of moon light with the 7D.

5Diii 2xii>2xiii>600EF ii moon f20.0 1/6sec iso 100 no cropping adjustments done in adobe bridge. So essentially this was a 2400mm moonshot, maybe tonite I'll try a 7D but at 2400mm it is hard to get the moon within the frame, so the 7D should overfill the moon. And I'll try to up the iso to 500 or so and shutter to 1/30 sec.
Also on Flikr https://www.flickr.com/photos/56580542@N05/14695787710/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/56580542@N05/14695823009/in/photostream/

 

[mackguyver]

Supermoon all kinds of extenders and big white. I'm quite pleased with the resolution given that two 2x extenders were used. Eyeballing them I'd say they are comparable to jrista's thousand points of moon light with the 7D.

5Diii 2xii>2xiii>600EF ii moon f20.0 1/6sec iso 100 no cropping adjustments done in adobe bridge. So essentially this was a 2400mm moonshot, maybe tonite I'll try a 7D but at 2400mm it is hard to get the moon within the frame, so the 7D should overfill the moon. And I'll try to up the iso to 500 or so and shutter to 1/30 sec.
Also on Flikr https://www.flickr.com/photos/56580542@N05/14695787710/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/56580542@N05/14695823009/in/photostream/

Nice work as well, applecider. It was cloudy and 95% humidity tonight here in Florida, so no dice on either night. Maybe next month's supermoon (though not as spectacular) will work out better.

 

[Dylan777]

Nice work as well, applecider. It was cloudy and 95% humidity tonight here in Florida, so no dice on either night. Maybe next month's supermoon (though not as spectacular) will work out better.

Sorry to hear that mackguyver.
This one was capture tonight from California - 5D III + 400mm f2.8 IS II + 2x TC III

I think this one is little better than my 1st

 

[serendipidy]

Reading this thread made me go out and try with my 7D and 100-400L handheld. This is my result after heavy cropping and some pp in DPP. 1/800s, F 5.6, ISO 160.

Supermoon Aug 10, 2014 by EricJ777, on Flickr

 

[Mr Bean]

Between winter rain showers last night, I managed to get off a few shots.
5D3 with 300mm f4 + 1.4x TC. 1/200th @ f11 ISO 100

 

[mackguyver]

Great shot serendipidy, and Dylan, that's just a little bit of an improvement! Glad to see the 2x arrived in time. Mr Bean - your moon appears to me upside down Actually I've got an "Australian Map of the Word" somewhere and I love it.

I got a glimpse of the moon last night when the clouds around it cleared for a few minutes, but that humidity was a killer. The binoculars I was using seemed quite blurry, even though they are as sharp as any lens I own. I also realized that you need to be a very long way from the object you intend to include in the frame if you want it in focus, probably miles away, I think.

The one bit of good news that came out of this very humbling and educational experience, was finding out that a truly dark sky location is within an hour of my house! It's in the middle of the Apalachicola National Forest, and very remote (no cell service) and beautiful place. Once it cools off in January or February, I'll cross my fingers for a cold low humidity night during the new moon. If all goes well, I think I'll be able to see/shoot the Milky Way! X marks the spot here:

 

[mackguyver]

P.S. even though I missed out on the supermoon, I did get a picture of another, brighter celestial body and though it was just for fun, at -2 EV it could almost pass for the moon, except for the 7:19AM time stamp

 

[Dylan777]

P.S. even though I missed out on the supermoon, I did get a picture of another, brighter celestial body and though it was just for fun, at -2 EV it could almost pass for the moon, except for the 7:19AM time stamp

Very nice

 

[Click]

P.S. even though I missed out on the supermoon, I did get a picture of another, brighter celestial body and though it was just for fun, at -2 EV it could almost pass for the moon, except for the 7:19AM time stamp

Cool shot, mackguyver. 8)

 

[jrista]

Mackguyver's image reminded me of some of my older supermoon photos. Most of these were from a couple years back, when the supermoon was the closest in 18 years (March 19th, 2011 @ 221,565mi, vs. the 221,765mi of this year). When the moon is full, I don't usually try to photograph it in detail...there just isn't any.

But it makes for great artistic photos, if you can catch it lower in the horizon, behind a thin layer of clouds, or painting a sky full of whispy clouds:

 

[serendipidy]

P.S. even though I missed out on the supermoon, I did get a picture of another, brighter celestial body and though it was just for fun, at -2 EV it could almost pass for the moon, except for the 7:19AM time stamp

Very beautiful photo.

 

[serendipidy]

Mackguyver's image reminded me of some of my older supermoon photos. Most of these were from a couple years back, when the supermoon was the closest in 18 years (March 19th, 2011 @ 221,565mi, vs. the 221,765mi of this year). When the moon is full, I don't usually try to photograph it in detail...there just isn't any.

But it makes for great artistic photos, if you can catch it lower in the horizon, behind a thin layer of clouds, or painting a sky full of whispy clouds:

Very nice series....I can almost hear a wolf howling.

 

[jrista]

Mackguyver's image reminded me of some of my older supermoon photos. Most of these were from a couple years back, when the supermoon was the closest in 18 years (March 19th, 2011 @ 221,565mi, vs. the 221,765mi of this year). When the moon is full, I don't usually try to photograph it in detail...there just isn't any.

But it makes for great artistic photos, if you can catch it lower in the horizon, behind a thin layer of clouds, or painting a sky full of whispy clouds:

Very nice series....I can almost hear a wolf howling.

LOL, yeah. This one is definitely a wolf moon.

 

[Mr Bean]

Mr Bean - your moon appears to me upside down Actually I've got an "Australian Map of the Word" somewhere and I love it.

LOL, I was about to add to my post that mine is the "corrected" perspective of the moon pic's

 

[Dylan777]

Mackguyver's image reminded me of some of my older supermoon photos. Most of these were from a couple years back, when the supermoon was the closest in 18 years (March 19th, 2011 @ 221,565mi, vs. the 221,765mi of this year). When the moon is full, I don't usually try to photograph it in detail...there just isn't any.

But it makes for great artistic photos, if you can catch it lower in the horizon, behind a thin layer of clouds, or painting a sky full of whispy clouds:

The 4th photo is stunning. The cloud adds more charateristics to the moon. All you need is a wolf