[Oldseabee]

Hi, We finally had a clear night here so I set up our telescope and took some pictures of the moon. I set my K-5 on manual focus and live view. The telescope is an Orion Skyview 8" Deluxe EQ. Used a 2X Barlow I seemed to be able to get a pretty good focus and fair detail between the light and dark portions of the moon. I'd like to get better detail of the light portion seemed to be too bright. If I use a neutral density filter will that help? I'd also like to get some closer magnification. I have a 2X, 3X, and 5X Barlows plus a couple of extension tubes. So help and suggestions are welcome because I'd like to get better. Jim

Attached Images

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

[UncleVanya]

My 8” Orion is almost too bright for my eyes with the moon. Mine is an older dobsonion model about 1200mm f6 if I recall. I had to create some cardboard cutouts to reduce the aperture to comfortably view the moon - at least when full. Obviously the thin sliver of the moon isn’t as blinding but details still were harder to see due to the intensity of the light. Adding the aperture plate drops brightness and might be a good way to test this before adding a neutral density filter.

What was the exposure used?

[othar]

Why not increase shutter speed instead of ND filters?
1/2s seems pretty long, do you have some kind of tracking unit for your telescope, otherwise you might get motion blur.

edit: ISO 3200 is also pretty high for the moon in my opinion (for stars you probably need it that high, depending on the lens you use, but not for the moon)

[ismaelg]

Hello,

I think your shutter speed is too low. Try a higher shutter speed in manual mode. Don't let the camera choose it as it is trying to compensate for the dark areas.

Thanks,

[UncleVanya]

Why not reduce shutter speed instead of ND filters?
1/2s seems pretty long, do you have some kind of tracking unit for your telescope, otherwise you might get motion blur.

edit: ISO 3200 is also pretty high for the moon in my opinion (for stars you probably need it that high, depending on the lens you use, but not for the moon)

On my phone I couldn’t see EXIF... I agree. Lower ISO and decrease exposure - either using manual mode or exposure compensation.

[photoptimist]

Astrophotography and auto-exposure seldom work. It looks like the camera's light meter took one look at the mostly black sky and used a very long shutter speed in a vain attempt to make the picture middle gray. Manual exposure is a must for situations like this and not so hard because the moon's brightness is extremely predictable.

The moon's surface is always in full sun with no clouds. In theory, the Sunny f/16 Rule would work except that the moon's surface material is quite dark. (The human eye is fooled into thinking the moon is bright white due to the contrast with the dark night sky).

Anyway, the rule for exposure of the moon is known as the Looney f/11 rule. Your telescope has an f/4.9 aperture which becomes an f/9.8 aperture with the 2X Barlow lens which is so close to f/11 that it does not matter.


Solution for your telescope with the 2X Barlow:
* Set the exposure mode to M
* Set the ISO to 100
* Set the shutter speed to 1/100
* Take the picture
* Review the picture on the camera's display (zooming to check the quality)
* If the Moon is too dark or too bright, adjust the shutter speed accordingly

[Bob 256]

If you're trying to get the dark side and the bright side, you'll need to shoot them individually and combine the results. It's like a dark night on the dark side, and a full sunny day on the bright side so the brightness range is tremendous, and most any camera would have problems capturing details in both in the same exposure.

Ditto to the previous posts for getting the bright side where it belongs exposure-wise. You might be able to do some post-processing masking to recover some dark side details but it will probably require a separate exposure.

[MossyRocks]

I would suggest using the looney 11 rule for exposing for the moon. at 1/2 a second that is way too long to stop the moon movement. Given what I looked up on the scope it is a 1000mm f/4.9 and since you were using a 2x barlow that means you were running at 2000mm and f/10 (close enough).

So using the looney 11 rule and just saying f/10 is close enough that would mean you would want to be taking shots that are 1/100s in length at ISO 100. You may find that the images are a bit on the dark side so you may need to run at 1/50s or even 1/40s but you should be in the general ball park.

[AstroDave]

As everybody said above, you are WAY overexposed.

Other than manual, using the suggestions of photoptimist and MossyRocks, you could try setting the exposure by using the center spot mode and offsetting your telescope pointing so the center spot is on the bright part of the moon.

[Oldseabee]

Thanks for all the pointers. I'll be trying them out. But damn now I'm going to have to read the instruction manual some more.Jim