Bottom of the moon?

[hmpws]

Here is a picture I took of the moon with my Minolta 135mm, when the moon was sky high.

The lens is obviously not long enough, and here is a many many % crop of the original:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonytse/4704418803/" title="_1040532.jpg by ttse007, on Flickr"> View attachment 145329 "500" height="500" alt="_1040532.jpg" /></a>

My question is what causes the "texture" along the bottom of the moon? Is the lens reaching its diffraction limit?

 

[CalebPhotographer]

There is less light at the bottom of the moon, and your shot is correctly exposed for that portion of the moon so the details in the craters stand out.

 

[Djarum]

There is less light at the bottom of the moon, and your shot is correctly exposed for that portion of the moon so the details in the craters stand out.

Yup. Your moon shot is slightly over exposed.

 

[hmpws]

Thanks for the comments. I will try again tonight if the weather is nice enough, i find that this is kind of hard to do this well on the LCD though.

 

[Grant]

That part of the moon is not fully illuminated it is partially in shadow hence the texture.

 

[Bokeh Diem]

Try bending over and shooting backwards through your legs for a better moon effect.

Oops. Back to lurking now.

Bokeh D

 

[CalebPhotographer]

Thanks for the comments. I will try again tonight if the weather is nice enough, i find that this is kind of hard to do this well on the LCD though.

You can change the metering to take from the center, and then adjust the EV+/- to compensate.

 

[georger]

Here is a picture I took of the moon with my Minolta 135mm, when the moon was sky high.

My question is what causes the "texture" along the bottom of the moon? Is the lens reaching its diffraction limit?

Low grazing angles of Sun illumination enhances Moon’s topography on the edge (bottom on your picture). With a higher magnification you would be able to see separate mountain peaks. See attached photo I copied from the Web.
George.

 

[ianc]

Exposures for the moon are pretty easy, put the camera in shutter priority mode and set the shutter speed to 1/125th second for a full moon, bracketing 1 stop either side can be a good idea as well.

The edge markings are the surface texture as pointed out above.

You could also attach your camera via a T mount and nose piece instead of the eye piece in a telescope, you can use an ordinary tripod as with the shutter speeds mentioned its still enough to freeze any motion.

The below shot was taken using a 1.3mp webcam type camera and a celestron 6" telescope, I purposely darkened the shots so the surface brightness wasn't a problem, its a mosaic of 3 shots @F10.

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[ChristopheG]

Wondering it is looks amazing. Really I would like to say your work is very nice.