Time to shoot the moon
"Moonlight feels right...” Remember those opening lyrics to that classic '70s tune with the same name by the group Starbuck? I love that old song, but I can't say that moonlight makes me feel right, at least when it comes to stargazing.
Weeks like this in Butler when there's a full moon means nothing but trouble for serious stargazing. Now, the actual full moon is this coming Friday night, but all this week as the moon grows from the ovalish gibbous moon to the actual full moon, all but the brightest stars and other celestial goodies are washed out by the lunar light.
The full moon itself can be a lot of fun to look at and even take pictures of. Now you can take any camera and point it at the moon and take a shot and get some pretty good pictures, especially when you can zoom in on it. Of course some cameras are better than others.
Did you know that you can take some amazing pictures of the moon through even a small to moderate telescope? To be quite honest with you, I didn't really know how good they can be but Jenny Winston, a 15-year-old high school sophomore who helps me out at some of my larger star parties, has taken some amazing shots.
I was amazed when I saw them. She took the pictures with a small Nikon digital camera in automatic mode. She didn't have to do any fussing with light settings or exposure time. All she did was put the lens of her camera right up against the eyepiece of her telescope and press the shutter button.
To make sure the camera was steady, she mounted it on a tripod and adjusted it so the lens was right up against the eyepiece as you can see in the picture. She said the trickiest part was to press the shutter button enough so the shot could be taken but not shake the camera. The best way to avoid that is to use the delay option on shutter so you don't have to actually press the button.
Now, admittedly, her telescope is not exactly small. It's an Orion brand SkyQuest 8-inch diameter Dobsonian reflector telescope. It's the kind of telescope I recommend if you're starting out in amateur astronomy. You can usually buy one for around $500 to $600.
Shooting pictures of the moon can still be done on even smaller telescopes. Hey, it's worth a try.
Along with keeping the telescope steady, another thing that's important is to use an eyepiece with your telescope that has a fairly wide lens. That's 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 I would do is 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's 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 that 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 sunlight.Once you get the photos you can work with them a little in photo shop or some other software to make them look even brighter or sharper, although you shouldn't have to do too much.Again, I was just amazed with the clarity. 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!<B><I>Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Pennsylvania Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his website www.lynchand thestars.com</B></I>
