Moon rise

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Two nights ago, as I was walking out of my local supermarket, I noticed the moon rising over the neighborhood trees. It was the reddest I've ever seen, short of a lunar eclipse. And if you've ever watched an eclipse of the moon, then you know what I mean by red!

Here in Houston, it's been exceptionally dry this past week or so, and I'm wondering if the dry air may have stirred up the particulates such that the moon rises and sunsets are becoming more colorful. Whatever, it's making for some startling moon rises.

Anyway, I realized that by the time I got home and got my photo gear gathered together and then drove to a location where I could get a good shot of the moon, the color would be gone. Doing the photography at my home would be impossible. I live in a neighborhood with many trees and my particular yard has almost no view of the sky. So, I planned ahead for last night, walked down to a parking lot about 1/2 block from my house, camera, lens and tripod in tow, and was ready as soon as the moon began peeking through some low-lying atmospheric haze.

The camera is a Canon EOS XS (1000D) and the lens is a Century Precision Optics Tele-Athenar II 650mm f/6.8 -- a real bazooka.

Here's a pic of the lens attached to my Pentax KX:

This was a difficult shot. I don't have a remote shutter release for my camera yet, so I have to use the self-timer set to 10 seconds, which is barely enough time for my camera/tripod assembly to stabilize itself when the wind is not blowing. But last night there was a slight breeze -- just enough to keep the setup shaking a bit by the time the shutter was released.

To make matters even worse, when the moon is this low to the horizon and shining through so much "stuff" in the air, the EV is very low. So I had to increase the ISO to 1600 (max for my camera) so I could use a halfway decent shutter speed. And my lightweight amateur-oriented XS has too much noise for my tastes at ISO 100!

So I did do some PP to this image, mostly to remove some of the noise, which requires some sharpening to make up for it. So I did perform these two operations.

I'm not all that satisfied with the results. The image is not as sharp as I'd like and there's still too much noise. But honestly I don't see that changing until I obtain a camera that has much better high ISO capability.

Kastro · Joined: 15 Jul 2010 Posts: 31

nice... and thats a serious lens attached!

mo · Expire: 2016-07-30

You certainly nailed the color you were describing!...what a monster of a lens! Very Happy

Thanks for taking the time to capture this image and showing us.
Is the KX a nice camera to use?...I have been chasing one for a while and wonder if it is worth going the extra few dollars to secure one?

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas