I was trying to Photograph the moon last night...

[Mr_Si]

... But my results were terrible.

The best I got was this and the apperture was right down there at f32

I was using a 250mm lens on a 550D on a tripod in my back garden.

Shutter was set to 30 seconds.

ISO 1600

What am I doing wrong?

There was a little cloud but nothing much, at the time of trying to take the photo, it was actually not covering the moon at all.

Please see attached for the image.

[nightfisher]

The moon is bright, drop the iso to about 400, and you dont need a long shutter exposure, try 1/100 as a starting point

[JamesF]

Yes indeed. That looks like massive overexposure to me. Last night I was using 1/1000 sec @ ISO400 with my 127 Mak (which is obviously a bit larger than your lens . You're much better going for underexposed images than overexposed. You can always stretch the histogram afterwards. I'd try a range of exposure times and see how they look.

James

[allcart]

You have all your settings backwards. The moon is brightly lit by sunlight so imagine you are taking a pic during a sunny day. You want an aperture that is a couple of stops down from wide open, or somewhere around f5.6 to f8 would do. Iso 100 and maybe 1/500 sec.

Use manual exposure and manual focus, Take a shot and check the pic on the lcd. Adjust shutter speed until you get the exposure right. 30 second exposures are for wide field star shots, you need a much much shorter shutter speed for a big bright moon.

The problem with your pic is over exposure and movement. Depth of field is not an issue when shooting something that is thousands of miles away, so you don't need f.32 and if you watch the moon in the viewfinder, you may see how fast it moves from the centre, so you need a faster shutter speed to avoid blur due to movement.

There are others here with more expertise than I, and they may chime in with advise, but in the meantime check my pic and look at the settings. Ignore the fact that I was using a much longer lens, the principle is the same.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/160684-my-august-moon/

[Ant]

I agree with all of the above, try a low ISO speed - maybe 100.

Autofocus should work with the moon, but manual focus is better and more controllable.

Start at 1/100s and review in the view finder - adjust accordingly.

What I would do is once you have the exposure right, take half a dozen shots, adjust the focus very slightly and take another dozen, then adjust slightly the other way and take another dozen.

You can always throw them away - but this method allows for slight adjustments your eye makes when viewing the image on the view finder, by taking multiple images at the same focus point give you a greater chance of getting that fleeting moment of good seeing.

Cheers

ant

[tich]

Ok so this was attatched to my scope but the settings I used were 1/4000 sec iso 400 to be able to capture the detail

But I used the same settings for when I captured it with the standard Canon lens.

Maybe I could have played around a bit more with the settings but it was late & I was tired & cold lol.

[Mr_Si]

Thank you everyone for your comments. They are very helpful.

I'll have another go tonight or tomorrow night as they should be clear skies.

So, short exposure time and medium to wide aperture. Plus a low ISO.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[Rihard]

... But my results were terrible.

The best I got was this and the apperture was right down there at f32

I was using a 250mm lens on a 550D on a tripod in my back garden.

Shutter was set to 30 seconds.

ISO 1600

What am I doing wrong?

There was a little cloud but nothing much, at the time of trying to take the photo, it was actually not covering the moon at all.

Please see attached for the image.

Keep the max aperture if you wish, but the moon is so bright that 1 / 200 " exposure (and ISO at max 400) will be more then enough

Don't forget it's daylight up there

[Mr_Si]

Ok all,

Tonight was more successful!

Did a few different ISOs, but I think 200 and 400 worked best here's one of the JPGs from the camera (I did raw too).

F11

1/80

ISO 200

[allcart]

That's looking better. Now adjust the raw image in your dpp software to get the colour a bit better, and crop it a bit. Don't be afraid of throwing away a lot of that blackness. Lets see some detail.

Convert to tiff, then use photoshop to add a touch of contrast etc, sharpen and convert to jpg.

If you haven't got photoshop, you can do all the editing in DPP.

Well done.

Try opening up the lens a bit more.

[Mr_Si]

@allcart,

This is where I'm coming un-stuck.

I have the Beta version of DSS as it's a new Canon, so the old version doesn't handle the raw files as apparently they changed their formatting or something.

Anyway, I don't know how to get it to stack them. When I do, it just stacks "1" file and then the outputted Tiff file is 3 columns of white and patterned white.

I'll try registax or something instead and see if I can get that to work.

[JamesF]

Registax will be better for stacking planetary and lunar images than DSS. Registax won't read RAW files at all though, but if you convert them to TIFF using Canon's DPP software (comes with the camera I think) then it appears to import the TIFF files ok.

James

[tingting44]

a lot better shots for your 2nd attempt buddy!!! you just have to work on your editing skills now.....cropping/sharpening/contrast etc, your be there in no time! cant wait to see some more pics mate

[allcart]

I wouldn't worry too much if you can't get image stacking to work. I am struggling with Registax myself. In fact I have yet to make any improvements over using just a single frame.

It must be possible, but am not finding it so.

All my best pics so far have just been carefully focused single images.

i do not own a telescope but do have slightly longer lenses than you, but that is not to say my pics will be any better than you are capable of taking. Just keep trying, and if you have liveview on your camera, use it to focus.

[Mr_Si]

Can you zoom in on the live-view?

My cropped image is not quite in focus...

[Mr_Si]

By Zoom in, in this case, I don't mean on the object itself, but to see the object closer in the live view screen to be able to check the focusing.

[tingting44]

By Zoom in, in this case, I don't mean on the object itself, but to see the object closer in the live view screen to be able to check the focusing.

yes push the magnify button, next to the AE lock button, you can zoom live view by x5 or x10

[Mr_Si]

Awesome. Loving learning 2 things at once... The night sky and SLR Features!

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[allcart]

now might be a good time to read the 550D manual. Page 107 onwards will give you all the info you should need to accomplish fantastic things using liveview. I look forward to the results.