The February full moon is upon us. It’s officially full on Monday night but for all practical purposes it’s full this weekend.

For me to say I have a love-hate relationship with the full moon would be a little strong. For sure, the full moon spells doom for serious stargazing but at the same time I think it’s so gorgeous as its light plays off the snow covered landscape.

The trouble though is that the moon’s light photo bombs the Butler night sky. All but the brightest stars and other celestial goodies are washed out by the lunar light.

Even the very bright planet Jupiter, the brightest star like object in the evening sky right now, suffers at least a little bit by the intense lunar light as it slowly rises in the low eastern sky after nightfall.

On Tuesday night, despite all the lunar light, the full moon and Jupiter will put on quite a show as they’ll be a tight celestial hug! The moon will only be two degrees to the lower right of Jupiter and that’s really close. Don’t miss it and pray for clear enough skies.

Besides just gazing at the light of the full moon this week how about trying to photograph it?

A lunar selfie with your cell phone may not work all that well, but you can take just about any camera and point it at the moon and take some pretty good pictures, especially when you can zoom in on it.

Of course some cameras are better at this than others. You can also take some amazing pictures of the moon though through even a small to moderate telescope and get some amazing shots using even just a small digital camera in automatic mode.

All you have to do is position the lens of your camera right up against the eyepiece of the telescope and press the shutter button. If you have video preview that’s best, but it can also be done just by looking through viewfinder.

Before you put the camera up to the eyepiece make sure the moon is focused as sharply as possible. Also, keep in mind that you only have a few minutes at the most to take your picture before the moon moves out of the field of view. Earth’s rotation can rush you a bit.

Holding your camera up to the lens with just your hands is very tricky but it can be done. It’s much better, though, to somehow mount your camera against the telescope edge.

One of the best ways is to mount your camera on a tripod and adjust it so the lens is right up against the eyepiece. Try not to shake the camera when you press the shutter button. That’s easier said than done, though. The best way to avoid that is to use the delay option on the shutter if you have one.

Along with keeping the telescope steady, also make sure to use an eyepiece with your telescope that has a fairly wide lens.

That makes it much easier for your camera to capture the light. The trade off there is that the wider the lens on the eyepiece the lower the magnification. My advice is to start with your lowest magnification eyepiece and work your way up and see how you do.

Another thing is to take pictures of the moon at various phases in its monthly cycle. Crescent moons, half moons and gibbous moons are all fun to photograph.

Actually, the full moon is my least favorite to shoot because there are no shadows anywhere on the disk and you just can’t see quite as much detail. At other phases in the monthly cycle you really see detail along what’s known as the terminator with the line that divides the sunlit part of the moon and the part that’s not bathed in direct sunlight.

Once you get the pictures you can work with them a little in photo shop or some other software to make them look even brighter and sharper although you shouldn’t have to do too much.

The clarity can be amazing as you can really see detail in the dark maria or plains on the moon as well as the mountains and craters. You don’t need a super fancy camera or telescope to get some amazing lunar photos to hang on your wall!

You can also take some really cool pictures of the moon with your cell phone camera through a telescope, but it’s a lot more challenging. Good luck trying to mount your cell phone on a tripod.

There is a product I highly recommend if you’re really serious about taking pictures of the moon or one of the brighter planets like Jupiter or Saturn as well. It’s the Orion SteadyPix Pro Universal Camera/Smartphone Mount from Orion Telescopes.

It’ll cost you about $60 but it really works well. You can attach your cell phone or even a small conventional camera to it and it latches on to the eyepiece of your telescope.

It holds your phone or camera steady. Just about any small camera or cell phone will fit on it as you can easily make adjustments to the mount.

The only problem you’ll have with this setup is that once the camera or phone is attached, your telescope will be unbalanced on its mount because of the added weight on eyepiece. That can be remedied by coming up with a counterbalance. I often use a zip lock plastic bag of pennies and duct tape on to the other end of the scope.

For extra credit this week see if you can take a picture of the full moon/Jupiter celestial hugging going on Tuesday night. Happy lunar shooting!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at www.adventurepublications.net.