How to: Photograph the Moon with HDR

This will just be a quick run through how I take photos of the moon. My equipment used is a Skywatcher 80ED telescope (equivelant of a 600mm lens) with a Canon 600D mounted to it. A remote trigger was also used.

Picture settings are set to Manual, RAW files, with bracketing switched on and ISO set to 400. I then use the live-view and 10x zoom on the edge to perfect the focus using the telescope. I'll set the shutter speed (no aperture don't forget!) so the moon has average tones and then take the 3 bracketed shots. I'll then adjust the initial shutter speed slightly to change the exposures further. This evening I took 5 sets of bracketed shots (15 photos in total). 

I then open every 3rd image to see the quality of it on a bigger scale. If I find a set of 3 that I'm reasonably happy with I'll load the 3 chosen images into Photomatix (or your preferred HDR-type program). 

In this case the B&W Natural preset gives a nice range of tones. 

I'm very new to processing HDR so I don't generally fiddle around with it to much. Once I've exported the HDR shot, I'll stick it in photoshop and touch up some of the layers. 

Finally, crop and save.

Report: The hunt for Messier Objects

I went to the pub with a few friends from the local photographic society, and eventually got home about 23:30. I looked up, as I always do, and saw it was a good clear night (you know - when you just seem to see more stars than usual). So decided to quickly cart my gear into the garden and set up. 

Galaxies M81 and M82
Click for annotated version

By around midnight I was set up and aligned - I'm starting to love the routine of setting up now - tripod facing N? check, tripod level? check, Polaris aligned? check, north star focused at 10x zoom with DSLR? check. Once I was star aligned I popped back into the house to look at my report of what there is to see that night, wrote down in my notebook M39 - an open cluster in Cygnus. Having looked at a few images of it, I saw it wasn't your usual cluster (no cloudy blob of stars) so I noted down a rough sketch of what I should be looking for.


So I head downstairs and outside, and punch in M39 on the keypad and watch it slew to the right position. I look up to see... cloud. Bright lit-up-by-the-goddamn-moon type of cloud, moving in. I quickly fired the shutter for 30s to see if I could at least catch something before the cloud came in, but looking at the image after - a hazy blank image with the most prominent stars just shining through.

So I headed in and shouted at my girlfriend about how annoying it all was and she said to just wait a bit, it may pass. But of course, I'm sure you all know, there's never an opening in the cloud! I then noticed there was a clear area of sky lower down toward the horizon, so quickly found some more targets to try out. Armed with my list - M51, M52, M81, M101, I had another go.

M52 - Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
Click for annotated version

First, the pinwheel and whirlpool galaxies - I managed to capture them, but laughed at how feint they were and decided to leave them for another night. Then I moved onto M81 & M82 and got a surprise, they were surprisingly clear - however, due to the theme of the night, it wasnt perfect. The neighbours tree decided to stick a branch right through my field of view. A few more swear words and I then slewed over to M52 - Open cluster in Cassiopia - it was there my luck changed. It looked stunning, a clear hazy cloud of stars on a black background was what met me on my camera screen. I spent about 10 minutes then capturing exposures to stack. I then moved back to M81 & M82, to see if they'd moved clear of the branch - to which they had :-) Good times! - another 10 or so minutes worth of exposures on these and I then realised the clouds had passed, revealing M39 - my original target. A quick final slew and there it was, clear as anything. I took a few shots, then compared the formation of the stars to my sketch - even showed my girlfriend who was very impressed how I found such a formation in the sky that was exactly the same to what I had planned/drawn out. Another 10 minutes or so of exposures and I decided to call it a night.

M39 - Open cluster in Cygnus
Click for annotated version

The only thing I am a little disappointed with, is I completely forgot to get some dark frames. Though my last few sessions have mainly used the same camera settings so could possibly use some of those.

I finished viewing at around 01:00. Came inside, then wrote down the file numbers of each object from - to, as I find this is much easier when I come to stacking as I know which RAW files to stack - considering I can't preview the image quickly.

The following day I processed the images using Deepskystacker 3.3.3 (beta version) and then touched up the images in Photoshop CS5. I'm really happy with how they came out, especially the two galaxies.

Report: First light with Evostar 80ED

I returned home from work yesterday just to meet the delivery driver at the door, to receive my new Skywatcher 80ED telescope. Unboxing it I felt like a child at Christmas, slowly taking pieces out of their protective bags and looking at them wondering what each bit did and what goes where. I first mounted the scope on my CG-5 and just played around with the balances, counterweight, and just getting a feel for it. There it stayed until it got dark (my girlfriend wasn't too impressed with it being left in front of the TV and her being too afraid to move it knowing I've spent an entire months salary on it all).

Then a miracle happened, I had clear skies. They weren't perfect as here in the UK has been very hot and muggy, so there is a slight haze lingering around in the evenings, and I went out pretty early - Polaris was quite faint as it wasn't long after full sunset, but I was eager to get out there and playing. Having lined up the mount with Polaris, I had a look through the camera's viewfinder (camera attached with a t-ring to the back of the scope) and was greatly surprised to find Polaris in sight, not right in the middle, but it was there. I then aligned the mount with Arcturus, Dubnhe and Deneb? (I think!) and took this opportunity to line up the finder scope, which always surprises me by how much you can see through them.

First target was the globular cluster in Hercules (M13). I took a few exposures, and initially noticed I was slightly out of focus. To fix this I navigated to the nearest bright star using the GoTo and used the 10x digital zoom to make tuning much more accurate. The fine-tuning focuser really helped too. Back to Hercules and things were much clearer, though in fairness it did seem to come out similarly to when I was capturing it with my 300mm lens.

I tried out a few other targets, the pinwheel galaxy was unsuccessful, and I couldn't even make out the feint shape of it like I could with my 300mm. The Dumbbell nebulawas visible, but a little faint, and again similar result to the 300mm lens. So I decided not to get too disheartened and went back to the Hercules cluster. I took roughly 4 minutes worth of 30s exposures, and ended up with the following result:

I'm happy with the result, but it's a little darker than I'd have liked but I didn't want to burn out the centre as I have with my previous attempts.

Here is the same target with the 300mm lens and around 15 minutes of exposure, I took this a week or so ago:

When comparing the two, I think the ED80 clearly shows more details and especially from a shorter total exposure. I now just have to find a way to prevent the middle from becoming burnt out and over exposed.

I have to admit, my first impressions of the scope are good, but there is a little doubt. The results from this first session were very similar to what I was getting with the 300mm lens. I know full well that this telescope is a good tube, and I know i'll be able to get some great photos with it, but at the moment I don't think I'm seeing that just yet. There is clearly much more room to work on and more to learn, and hopefully I'll be able to see real improvements compared to images with the 300mm lens (otherwise I'll feel like I've wasted a bit of money!).