Is the moon useful to nebula shots?

[Chewie65]

Morning 

I’ve read a few things that make me doubt my own lack of intelligence 🤣

ive got the impression that having some moon actually aids results for nebula. When I tried once before, it was all over exposed. 
bearing in mind how much the moon does impact on night sky photography, (let alone uk weather) knowing it can be done would be amazing. 
I’m using m4/3 camera and lenses. No mods and a skywatcher star adventurer. 
please tell me I’m not being too hopeful! But likewise just say - fat chance 😄😄
 

 

[PeterCPC]

No. You want the sky to be as dark as possible for DSOs including nebula.

[ollypenrice]

Peter is right. The moon is a disaster for photographing nebulae because this requires the faint nebulosity to be made visible by 'stretching' it in processing to brighten it by more than we brighten the background sky. That's how we separate it from the background. Once the background is as bright as the nebula (to give an extreme example) there is nothing to separate. Nebula and background become one.

It is possible to photograph emission nebulae in the hydrogen alpha emission spectrum during the moonlight because sufficient contrast between moonlight and nebula is created by an appropriate Ha filter.

Olly

[tomato]

The only way I would describe the moon as as useful is that if you image faint nebulae with and without the moon present it will help you appreciate it’s absence!
 

Having said that, if all you have is a moonlit sky, don’t be afraid to have a go. Choose a brighter target positioned well away from the moon if possible.

Take a look at this thread to have some idea of what is possible, although bear in mind some of the better results have been obtained with sensitive CMOS cameras and large scopes.

 

[Guest]

The moon is is really cool to look at and it has tons of neat features that you can see when you watch it through all its phases.  With that said when you want to see anything else all you want is for the moon to go away.  It is stupid bright and can wreck a evening in a hurry

[RT65CB-SWL]

Even when viewing the planets or the Sun, the Moon gets in the way and ‘photo-bombs’. Damn annoying! 😉

[bosun21]

I only like the moons presence when I am actually viewing it, all other times it’s a hindrance. This hindrance also grows in tandem with a gibbous moons growth. As well as being very detrimental to the imaging fraternity, it’s certainly not a friend of the visual astronomers either. It’s bad enough having to deal with the light pollution without the added bugbear of the moon. I have also found that when I am using my binoculars, the viewing is also negatively impacted.

[gorann]

With narrowband filters (especially Ha) it is possible to image DSOs under a full moon, but aim at bright ones and away from the moon. This is what my Samyang 135mm (f/2) with an Omegon veTEC571C camera (cooled colour CMOS) caught during last full moon through an IDAS NBZ dual-band filter (Ha+Oiii). Of course the image would most likely have been better without the moon.

Cheers, Göran

Edited November 5, 2022 by gorann

[Guest]

2 hours ago, bosun21 said:

I only like the moons presence when I am actually viewing it, all other times it’s a hindrance. This hindrance also grows in tandem with a gibbous moons growth. As well as being very detrimental to the imaging fraternity, it’s certainly not a friend of the visual astronomers either. It’s bad enough having to deal with the light pollution without the added bugbear of the moon. I have also found that when I am using my binoculars, the viewing is also negatively impacted.

Bugbear?  Ok.... Thats a new one 

[cajen2]

I was out a couple of nights ago cloud dodging. The Moon was close to Jupiter (which of course is bright enough not to be bothered by it) and these were the only two targets it was worth focusing on - anything dimmer was soon swallowed up by cloud.  So when Jupiter was hidden, the Moon was often clear and vice versa. Thus, it was handy for once...

Edited November 5, 2022 by cajen2

[bosun21]

1 hour ago, Mike Q said:

Bugbear?  Ok.... Thats a new one 

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, bosun21 said:

All i could come up with is a creature from the fantasy role playing game. 

[Chewie65]

Thanks. I did think I was being stupid in interpreting it that way, but as mentioned, Having looked back at my history, I was reading things referring to with filters. The results I was reading was after searching “ Astro mod”  but I assumed (wrongly) the article referred to all shots. 
Im off to bury my head in the sand and feel like a muppet 🤣🤣🤣