The Moon in Cancer, with Earthshine (or I wish I'd thought about M44)

[johnfosteruk]

I had an idea to do a composite of the Moon with earthshine. A sort of HDR(ish) image showing both the detail in the illuminated side as well as the earthshine (I've tried it before with varying degrees of success)

Using the HDR tools in various software has never worked so I set up the Tamron and took 7 images (the longest being a long enough exposure to show Asellus Borealis and some other local stars in Cancer), with a view to manually blending the layers in Photoshop and painting in the detail in the illuminated side.

Afterwards I realised that I'd missed an opportunity to capture the Moon and M44 just 1.5° below it, I wish I'd thought of that before I framed and captured the data! It's too late now as the Moon is below my West garden wall.

Anyhoo, enough of my blethering, here's the moon, in Cancer.

Edited May 27, 2020 by johnfosteruk