SuperMoon! (1 Viewer)

I shot a jet trasiting in front of the Super Moon =)
www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/5541587710/

My best regular shot at it too:
www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/5541153603


Just like the last two times I wasn't expecting to have a plane jump in front of my moon shots, they just seem to happen that way! First time I thought it was one in a million, now I guess I am just crazy lucky!!!
First time:
www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/2769801044/
Second time:
www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/3282095668/

I'm in total awe of this one tho!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matt-astronomy/5541639850/

My full set from tonight, trying to lock in focus was a pain!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/sets/72157626178639255/

Wow Sam, those are amazing!I'm used to seeing the shot info on Flickr. What lens were you using and how high is the iso? There is no noise to speak of that I could see.

Just click on the link to the camera link (Nikon D300) on the right side of the page with the individual photo, and it'll show you the meta data for the photo itself. It looks like a 400mm lens at ISO 400.

ahh, there we go. Thanks Patrick.

Yup, it's my 1972 era vivitar 400mm f5.6 manual focus lens in nikon f mount. Best $25 I ever spent (back in 1986!!!).
Once I sell my house I'm thinking of saving up for the 400mm F2.8 VR2 lens for about $10k. Now THAT will be an upgrade eh?

Nice shots, Sam! The moon didn't look that impressive here on Saturday night, so I left my camera in the bag.

Thank you all for the kind words. Luna is one of my favorite subjects!

First Moon shot with the new 80-400mm VR2 attached to the D300. Will be interested to see how it looks on the D4.

13-Moon-2479 by Kadath, on Flickr

I may have over sharpened a bit, what do you think?

How does the image look with a tighter crop? The best moon shots I have seen are much tighter, where the subject fills the frame. You can really see the details of the moon then. Maybe try with a teleconverter attached, too?

That is severely cropped already. I think it's down close to 1k pixels wide. I definitely want to experiment with some of the TCs but haven't budgeted for that yet.

New supermoon on sunday!
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2013/06/the-super-moon-is-coming-heres-how-to-photograph-it/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130621-summer-solstice-2013-longest-day-sun-earth-space-science/

My best from last night, will be out again tonight:

13-D4SuperMoon-1667-2 by Kadath, on Flickr

Holy crap, Sam!

That's what separates the men from the boys.

This "boy" shot a full moon back on April 25th. But all I have at my disposal is a Canon Rebel XS with an EF-S 55-250mm lens.

What a difference from the detail in your shot!

Thanks mike but I have two secrets in my process:

-Experiment like hell to get the best exposure but use the lowest ISO you can. The noise difference between 200 and 400 is noticeable at night!
-CRANK UP the sharpening, but mostly in the radius slider, not in detail. Then back it off using masking.

I appreciate the kudos but I too look at those with more experience and gear, and feel in no way like a big boy, and say 'someday' =) We're all on the path together! Yours are great too, keep at it!

Nice effort, Sam. Flickr blocked the EXIF data for the photo. Could you share the exposure settings and focal length you used, and whether it was on a crop or full frame body?

I forgot about this event last night, as I was going to give it a "shot". I have never tried shooting the moon, but I would think it would be challenging, especially with the limitations in my equipment for this type of photography. My longest lens is 400mm, with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 at that length, and I have both a full frame and crop body. I do have a 1.4x TC, but that reduces the maximum aperture to f/8, so I never use it on that lens. If I can keep the ISO low, the 18MP crop body will provide more pixels on target than the 23MP full frame body.

I don't think it's blocked, just moved in the new interface. Click on ... and then view EXIF and you should get to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/9118221065/meta/

D4, 80-400VR2 at 400mm, ISO 200, f6.3 at 1/400th. Pretty close to Sunny 16 but as I said I was experimenting with different apertures, but keeping it at or above 1/400th and at base ISO. I tried VR on and off, I think this is off.

Got my new scopes out tonight and did some shots with the D4 and the 80-400 too just to document the night. I like this combo!


14-AstroJan-6141 by Kadath, on Flickr

Orion's belt:

14-AstroJan-6135 by Kadath, on Flickr

Jupiter and the Galilean moons lined up nicely:

14-AstroJan-6134 by Kadath, on Flickr

Beautiful photos. I'm a complete newbie, but have been doing moon shots the past year or so on black & white stock with and old Nikon and a few fancy lenses. One of them is about a foot long, have no idea what it is, but has some great zoom qualities. As I said, completely newbie, need to do a lot of research.

Also did some time-lapse of my yard/garden. Aligned the camera very carefully, then took a picture once a week for a year, used color this time. Turned out fairly well, but I still need some training.

Very cool, Sam. I do not know much about telescopes. What type of scope do you have? I assume the adapter for your Nikon only allows manual focusing -- correct? The image quality is quite impressive.

When we were in Glacier National Park last summer, another visitor allowed me to look through his spotting scope at some big horn sheep in the distance. It has some great optics, and had available adapters for dSLR's. I cannot remember the manufacturer brand, but was impressed with the quality for the price he paid (under $1,000). For distant wildlife, that could be a lower cost alternative to the outrageously priced super telephoto lens that Canon makes.

Again these are from my Nikon D4 and 80-400mm VR II lens, not a telescope. AF and VR turned off, severely cropped on the moon shot, less on the others.I don't think the D4 could be attached to anything thats on less than a heavy duty german equatorial mount in the $4k plus range, but I want to get a T ring for my NEX-5N.