Many thanks to Tony Kidd for sending in this photograph of a waxing crescent moon taken last Sunday. He's joined the small group of us, including the Raptor, who are finding a new interest in trying to capture pictures of Ardnamurchan's night skies. We need to hone our skills, as we're still moving towards the maximum of the eleven-year aurora cycle and there's always a chance of spectacular sightings in our clear skies. Anyone else capturing great shots like this is welcome to share them through The Diary.
Tony has promised to identify all the craters next time as he has a moon atlas.
It's a great picture, the more remarkable because Tony's camera was hand-held. We're very envious of Tony's steady hand.
Handheld pics of the moon are quite achieveable with modern gear these days. If you have a DSLR, then use the vibration reduction (Nikon's terminology) or whatever you manufacturer calls it. So handheld at 1/250th second at say 300mm zoom, VR on, aperture about f8 & ISO about 1600. Breathe out & stay steady! That ISO on modern DSLR's is lightyears better (no pun intended!!) than a similar ISO on cameras of just a few years ago. Try changing the white balance to get interesting variations on the moon's colour. Alan G.
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