Some helpful hints on how to take pictures of the moon.
The moon through my three inch f/9 reflecting telescope.
This webpage should hopefully help my students (and possibly others) enrolled in the ASTR 1010 class at GSU. There are two semester projects for this class. The first one is visiting an observatory, where you go to a local observatory and look through a telescope (don't forget to get your lab signed before you leave). The second project is to observe all the phases of the moon. (Be sure to record the date, time, and altitude of each observation. We also ask for the weather conditions and the camera you used). I have made this website to help students be able to take quality pictures of the moon.
First off, I do not have a state-of-the-art or top-of-the-line camera. I have a simple point and shoot Olympus (Stylus 300 Digital). The camera has a 3.2 megapixel capability, which is only moderate resolution by today's standards.
Pointers: There are many different modes on most cameras. When you are taking a picture of the moon at night, remember that it is a really bright object surrounded by dark sky. This makes it hard to use the “auto” mode because the camera wants to collect a certain amount of light and then the light from the moon gets saturated and changes the apparent shape. Of course, the “auto” mode is usually fine when you are taking a picture of a phase during the day. (You could get almost all of them during the day...)
For night pictures of the moon, leaving the flash on is usually the best thing to do. It tricks the camera into taking a shorter exposure. “Night” mode will make your camera use a much longer exposure to get a good picture. This works well for typical scenery at night, but causes the same over-exposure problem as mentioned earlier for the moon.
I found that my best results were in the “Landscape + portrait” mode. I left the flash on and took the picture somewhere where there was also a nearby object. (example: tree branches, buildings, etc.) This gives a very aesthetically pleasing picture, and with that mode and a flash, you get a nice foreground picture with the moon in the background. Of course this works better when you have a zooming lens on your camera. I have the capabilities of a 3x zoom with my lens, and then about 4x from that with digital zooming. (a total of 12x when combined.)
Hints from Serge Dieterich (including helpful hints for film)
Examples
These pictures are of the first quarter moon, where I used the above method. The pictures are not digitally zoomed. They were taken around 7:00 pm on December 27, 2006.
These pictures are of a waxing gibbous moon. The pictures are not digitally zoomed. They were taken around 5:00-7:00 pm on December 29, 2006. The daytime pictures were in automatic mode. The nighttime picture was in “landscape and portrait” mode.
The following pictures were also taken with the landscape + portrait mode. These were taken on March 3, 2007. The moon is seen in these pictures coming out of a total lunar eclipse (which is why it does not look full except in one picture).
Rise and Set times for the moon, as well as the dates of the phases (pdf form; re-compiled by Adric Riedel who also has a similar page)
Coming soon: other phases, when the weather and my schedule permits.
Also, as a warning, if I see any of these pictures turned in as part of the moon lab, that lab will receive a score of zero. Other TAs have been made aware of this site and the photos on it as well.
Suggestions for this page? Email me
Last Update: March 28, 2007.