The Moon - by Bill Kramer
The moon is an easy subject for photography. All you need is a camera with a long focal length lens and a steady platform like a tripod. A telescope and other accessories bring in even more options for lunar photography (shooting the moon!). That's the fun of shooting the moon, you can use a wide range of equipment and get a lot of different results!

The following images are samples from our rather large collection of lunar pictures. The equipment ranges from a zoom lens with a camera on a tripod to a Celestron 14" with a small CCD. Using a zoom lens shows the lunar maria (seas) and some of the largest craters. Add a telescope and the craters become even more numerous and couple a CCD at higher magnification and you can see lots of details.

Zoom Lens, Digital Camera, Rear Cell mounting, CCD closeups, and Lunar Eclipses.
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Moon and Venus - June 18, 2007 - Digital Canon with zoom Moon - June 18,2007 - Cannon Digital EOS with 400mm zoom
Full Moon - Feb 28, 2002 - Questar prime focus

Zoom lens on a Tripod:
April 1999 - 200 mm Zoom lens on fixed tripod
You do not need a lot of advanced equipment to start taking pictures of the moon.

The moon is a bright object and provides interesting images at all focal lengths.  Mounting a camera on a tripod or a steady mount is all that is required.  A 50 mm lens will produce a small image and it is recommended that a zoom lens be employed for the best results.

The size of the lunar image on a piece of film is determined by a simple equation.  To find how many millimeters in size that the lunar image will show on a standard 35 mm film is simple.  Divide the focal length of the lens by 100.  A 200 mm lens will result in an image that is 2 mm in size.  35 mm film is about 25 mm from top to bottom.

As seen in the following images, the moon is rather small by comparison to the image size.  But that does not mean it is not interesting! You just need to be selective in the setting you pick.

When the bright planets or stars are near the cresent moon is a good time to use a basic zoom lens with a tripod as in the following images taken April of 1999 using a 200mm lens.

Young Moon, Venus, Saturn (200 x 300)
 


Experiments with a Digital Camera:

Afocal photography is where the camera with lens is set behind the eyepiece of the telescope.  Set the camera lens to a focus of infinity and hold it away from the eyepiece by a few millimeters.  Brackets and holders can be used to accomplish this task.

The magnification can be varied by changing eyepieces.

This is the only astrophotography approach you can take with basic consumer digital cameras.  Using a camera purchased in mid 1999, the following images have been obtained that were deemed worth while.  The lack of a cable release and short life of the batteries when the rear video display is running all the time have proven this to be a novelty approach at best.  At least as far as this camera is concerned.

Young Moon - Feb. 2000 - Kodak Digital camera held to eyepiece of Questar - this method of getting digital images is not easy! I took a lot of images before getting just this one. So don't bring your digital camera to a star party expecting to get a nice picture of the moon - at least not without spending some time at it.  And do remember to disable the flash unit if it is automatic!

Nearing first quarter 8/4/2000 (768x512) 32mm eyepiece projection from Questar


Rear Cell Photography:
Meade 10 at f/6.3Attaching the camera body to the rear of the Questar telescope is much better for getting views of the complete moon.  The following photographs illustrate the types of images you can achieve with a camera, T-adapter, and telescope.
  The Lunar Landscapes web page shows the Questar using a variety of lenses for positive projection.  I was experimenting with different lens projections and achieved a dramatic sequence of results with the same telescope, just changing lenses. This is a lot of what it is like to view the moon with the telescope and changing eyepieces.

Another way to achive variable magnification is to attach a barlow (negative projection) lens to the rear cell of the telescope. This lens will extend the focal length by refracting the light "outward".  As a result, the further you place the camera from the lens, the longer the effective focal length (and hence, the higher the effective magnification).  Here is the basic sequence taken April 1999 using the Questar at 1400mm (all images 300 x 200), attaching the 2x barlow - 3100mm  EFL, and extending it using all the extension attachments for a 4100mm EFL.  The amount of detail that becomes visible is amazing!

The moon is very bright.  That is demonstrated in the following two photographs through the Questar in December of 1998. That night the moon was very close to Jupiter and both could be captured in the frame at 1200mm.  In the first photograph, Jupiter is visible as a bright star.  In the second image, Jupiter is overexposed to reveal it's four primary moons. Both images are 200x300.

In January of 2002 the moon occulted Saturn.  Clouds prevented us from seeing most of this event in Ohio however I did manage to squeeze of a few images of Saturn getting very close to the darker side of the moon.  A 2x barlow lens was used on the Questar for an effective focal length of 4100mm. (600x400 image of Saturn & Moon)

Using a larger telescope is not always better when taking images of the moon as seen in the following photographs.  The longer focal length of the Questar and 90mm objective lens combine to take most excellent images.  But, here are some cool images taken using the larger Meade 10".
 


CCD Images of the Moon - Part 1

In summary, CCD cameras are most excellent for imaging the moon close up. Using three different telescope sizes, I initially employed the CWIP12 CCD. This was a low cost CCD system that gave very good, albeit small, black and wite only, results. The larger telescopes brought in very nice details but it required some practice to get it all working right and no image enhancement software was used. These images are single frames and not stacked.
Questar Meade 10" Celestron 14"
Clavius Crater group
Mare Imbrium sunrise 		Mare Humorum
Sinus Iridum
Alpine Valley area
Apennine Mts
Ptolemaeus
Copernicus 		Sinus Iridum
Jura Mts

CCD Images of the Moon - Part 2
Technology moves fast and in the summer of 2006 I purchased a used Meade LPI. The sales information stated that you could get great results the first time out. The following images taken with a Questar are the result of the first time out with the set up. The Meade LPI software is not well documented and there are elements on the screen that don't make sense at first, so I trusted the default settings and here is what I managed to capture June 5th 2006.

Questar -

I was impressed! And the software was very easy to use once I got the hang of a few things like selecting a crater for it to automatically track on and stack images. As the camera program ran I watched an increasingly better image build on the screen. A very enjoyable experience.

Perhaps the only bad part about a CCD is the need for a computer to go with it. The local Ohio dew in the summer and freezing cold in the winter are not the best environments for computers. It is easy to understand why astro imagers who use CCD rigs often end up building observatories to fend off the elements.


An interesting event to photograph is a Lunar Eclipse.  For more about Lunar Eclipses, visit http://www.eclipse-chasers.com where photographic and other tips are provided.

Lunar Eclipse (343 x 247) - January 2000 - prime focus through Questar, another image (295 x 238).
Lunar Eclipse (216 x 203) - April 1995 - prime focus through Questar, larger image (800 x 600)
Lunar Eclipse (418 x 411) - March 23/24 1997 - prime focus Questar, 5 seconds through clouds
Lunar Eclipse (320 x 200) - September 26, 96 - 50mm lens on CCD, through clouds
 

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