Photographing the Moon and the Planets
Using Level Three eyepiece projection will bring the craters of the moon and the rings of Saturn to life , and if that is not exciting, you are researching the wrong hobby. Most people are simply not prepared for the clarity and 3D look of the moon’s crater, or of the color found of the rings of Saturn.
The first problem that many find when taking pictures of the moon, is that what is seen through the telescope’s eyepiece does not match in clarity to what shows up on the camera’s LCD screen. A vivid view through the telescope will turn into an average image on the camera.This is due to the turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. Timing photographic session with the moon at the highest points in the night sky helps eliminate some, but not all of this fuzziness.
The way to eliminate this is to use the “video” feature available on most cameras these days. Use the 10x zoom magnifying on the LCD screen. Set the ISO to 400 and get the telescope focused on the planet. Set the video to last for about 45 seconds. This is the equivalent of taking individual photos at around 15 frames per second. This can be done with a self-timer. When the video is watched on the camera, it will look as if the fuzziness is still there. However, when downloading the video to an editing “image stacking” software, the best of the 900 or so individual frames can be pulled out and then aligned exactly to the same position and let the software stack the photos. It is able to stack each frame in layers to produce one, sharp, clear, distinct image. With the fast shutter speeds of the video clip, there will be plenty of images without the distortion of the atmosphere mixed in with the rest of the photos.
Moon photographs
• Take at the highest point in the sky
• Take photos when moon is at or near its first phase.
• Lunar craters and mountain ranges take on a three-dimensional appearance
• The brightness of a full moon will be counterproductive to any detailed moon surface photographs
• Find the Terminator line, and take images close by.
Planet photographs-
Start with Saturn and Jupiter
• Saturn ’s rings
• Jupiter has colorful cloud bands and the Great Red Spot, which actually is an immense oval hurricane in the atmosphere
• Jupiter’s has four Galiean moons that are constantly changing positions and fun to capture their images
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