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: 29 July - Hedgehogs

I know it hasn't been long since the last one - but then the weather is meant to turn nasty for the rest of the week so was very grateful for the clear skies given to me this evening. I started out with my list of objects I wanted to try find, with their written mag and a rough idea of what they were. This saves me having to continuously go back in to look at a computer screen and lose my night vision. I attached the list for your interest! I started off with M34 and M15 - two clusters, sadly both of which obstructed by a hedge or a house. So I moved on to M92 and was straight away impressed, a really nice cluster to shoot - really recommend it.

M92

I then got a bit distracted by a rustling, sure enough, our local hedgehog has decided to come see what I'm taking photos of. I watched him for a bit with the red-light which doesn't seem to bother him - then told my girlfriend (who loves hedgehogs and wants to attract more to our garden) who then came out to see our spiky friend, who then didn't like the crowd and made a run for it.

Back to the telescope, after 10 mins or so exposure on M92, I moved onto M29 and M103, who seem to be quite different from your usual cluster. These two are Open (rather than globular) and therefore look like they have a small pattern of prominent stars grouped together. Again, another 2 lots of ~10mins exposures on each of these and I moved on.

M29

M103

I felt a bit sorry for the hedgehog, so I got some mealworms we feed the birds with and put some on the ground near where he was seen the last time, hopefully to tell him we're friends not foe and wish him to return!

Having already captured the targets I initially set out to get, I used my phone to navigate the sky and see what objects were visible and were located in the clearest areas of the sky. I then added M71 - a globular cluster to my list, and was very happy that it had just about cleared the roof of my house - another 10 mins exposure!

M71

While happily gazing into space and listening to the camera click, I heard another sound that caught my attention. It's difficult to describe what the slobbery sound was, but of course, it was the hedgehog feasting on the worms we put down. They are very loud eaters! I expect to find a load of dribble on our patio tomorrow morning where he had his feast, but was pretty happy we managed to lure him back!

I then discovered on my phone an object in clear skies called M40 - a Double star. Double star? What was Messier thinking? M40 - also known as Winnecke 4 - a double star in Ursa Major; stealing this from Wiki: "one of the few real mistakes in the Messier catalog," faulting Messier for including it when all he saw was a double star, not a nebula of any sort." Still, I was happy to capture it, and to tick it off my Messier list, even if it was one of his mistakes!

I then packed away my things, left the hedgehog to roam round the rest of the garden without fear of the red-light monster with a clicking contraption, and am now very happy having had such a pleasurable and successful evening capturing the stars.