Quest: Take a photo of the Moon

There is a great app for Android users called Lunescope that provides up to date information about the current Moon phase and when it will rise and set each day. This app is only available for Android; a corresponding app for IOS seems to be My Moon Phase - Lunar Calendar (which looks similar to me; this is not an endorsement!).

During its waxing phase, the Moon is visible for most of the early evening. After full moon, it rises later each night, eventually becoming a daytime object. Day or night, it is usually visible somewhere in the sky. There is nothing wrong with trying daytime exposures of the Moon! Just avoid pointing near the Sun when it is near New Moon phase.

Lesson goal: The point of this exercise is to improve your familiarity with the telescope and camera controls.  Look under the Topics widget on this site for prepared topics that might help you, including Finding a Target and Focusing the 53ED scope. Happy hunting!

TIP! Once you have the Moon framed in your camera and ready to shoot, check the settings and change the Shutter Speed to 2 or 3 ms, the Gain to 0, and the number of exposures to just 1. Take several test shots, adjusting the shutter speed up and down as needed until you are ready to frame for the best shot, and take it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I really want this concept to succeed!

Image
Wisdom of the crowd for an intriguing product idea I was an early backer for the EduSnap 53ED 2-in-1 OSC smart telescope project. Astrophotography is one of my hobbies, and I hoped this project would help me transition from planetary to deep sky imaging. I received my scope late in the first tranche of US deliveries and dawdled in the dearth of how-to information to get started. Then I downloaded a more recent app, had some successful imaging sessions, and am now on my way to making sensible use of the scope. This scope is neither a spotting scope nor a ubiquitous 70mm short scope with awful pointing. It is actually a good first implementation of a cheaper-targeted smart telescope designed primarily for deep sky astrophotography. This means it has plate-solving tracking like PHD2, live stacking like SharpCap, a celestial database and sky view like Stellarium, and the ability to actually turn out a decent entry-level expectation of a deep sky object. I mean, dayum... I'm hooked on t...
Read more

Open Letter to EduSnap Developers

 Greetings to the EduSnap development team! Many backers like myself have received our rewards, and are starting to learn how to use this unique product you have designed. Thank you for the outstanding design and production effort we know you have put into this unique project. But I want to speak on behalf of many backers who are concerned about the lack of information about late deliveries, reported issues, and questions about the use of the product. We need to hear from you that the project is still supported and that our questions have been heard. Concerning support, I have created this site to help those who have received the rewards to get up to speed more quickly on enjoying your product. Several other informal support channels are starting to gain traction as well. This is all to help you on supporting new users with their "how to" questions. In return, I hope you can concentrate on helping those who need repairs or help with their missing shipments.  Whoever has been ...
Read more

Site Updates #1

 See anything different here? I have converted the site from a primarily blogging tool to a topic-driven organization of fixed pages that are not part of the blog itself. Within this new organization, look for a Topics widget on the side, and a set of category links at the top. Each category will link to pages related to that category, and so forth. Finally, I applied a new responsive theme, which means that this information should be equally accessible and readable whether you are viewing on a phone, tablet, or desktop. Enjoy!
Read more