#ObserveTheMoon
International Observe the Moon Night is a worldwide celebration of lunar science and exploration held annually since 2010. This year, the night fell on Saturday October 20th, 2018. After a week of some really terrible weather here in DFW, the first sunshine in days gave way to a relatively clear night. So I decided to mark the occasion and toted my telescope and camera up to the roof of my parking garage and got some shots of our closest neighbor.
This is a composite shot taken at 1/320sec ISO 640 using my Canon 80D & Orion 130ST Equatorial Reflector Telescope.
Full moons get all the hype, but to me… nothing beats seeing how the craters on the surface react to the edge of light. It’s what helps remind you that it isn’t just some bright flat dot up in the sky. This particular phase is called Waxing Gibbous, as the Moon makes its way to being full later this week.
Gear
There’s plenty of ways to achieve photos like this, but I’ll just cover what I use and what tends to work for me. I purchased my first telescope a few years ago. After doing a ton of research, I settled on the Orion 130ST Equatorial Reflector Telescope. It offered the most versatility for me and was moderately priced. For the size, it’s a pretty decent scope and so far I’ve been able to see Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and of course, the Moon. Not bad for fighting city light pollution. I had to invest in a few accessories to be able to take photos using my DSLR. Breakdown below:
A. Canon 80D
B. T-Ring
C. Shorty 1.25-Inch 2x Barlow Lens
The t-ring attaches to the camera just like any lens would, and the Barlow lens threads into the ring providing a secure fit. Using the Barlow lens adds an extra benefit of 2x zoom. You then insert the camera-lens combo into the telescope just as you would any other telescope lens.
It’s easiest to turn the camera onto Live View mode so you don’t have to rely on the viewfinder. At this level of zoom, the Moon is constantly racing out of the frame… so it takes frequent adjustments and you have to be quick. Because there’s technically no lens on the camera (the telescope is now the lens), you have to manually set your focus. The settings I’ve found that work best for me are around 1/320sec ISO 640. A fast shutter speed helps avoid any motion blur. I use a 10 second delay to avoid any shake from me touching the camera, but a bluetooth trigger works well too. At this size, the Moon is actually too large to fit in the frame. Easy fix though – I just manually stitch two images together using Photoshop.
I also recently bought a cell phone mount so I could test out using my phone in lieu of my camera. I was actually really impressed how well the iPhone XS did!
If you’re interested, there’s a few great apps available to help plan your moon shoot. SkyView Lite is free and let’s you use your phone to find the locations of objects around the universe. It can show you the track it will take as it moves across the sky and what time it will be in a particular position. It’s super handy and really easy to use. Another great free app I love is (appropriately called) The Moon. It’s got all of the information you need about that big hunk of rock up there, including the Moonrise/set time, a calendar that shows the phases, and more.