Best Time to Shoot the Moon in 18 Years - 19 March

[d7e7r7]

If you feel like shooting the moon tonight may be your best opportunity according to this article.

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/03/18/tomorrow-night-may-be-the-best-time-to-shoot-the-moon-in-18-years/

If you’ve been thinking of trying your hand at lunar photography, tomorrow night might present the perfect opportunity to do so. It’s when the Moon will be the closest it has been to the Earth in 18 years, making it 14% larger and 30% brighter than when the full Moon is furthest away. Miss this opportunity, and you won’t see a Moon like this until about 2029 — who knows what we’ll be shooting with by then!

EDIT:
Here's some links on shooting the moon for those who want to give it a try:
http://www.danheller.com/moon.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2132906_shoot-moon.html
http://photographyblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/07/how-to-shoot-the-moon.html
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/moon-photography-made-simple

 

[Rosaudio]

I don't have a gun sorry.

 

[FrankCastle]

Many men will be shooting tonight but not at the moon-after all it is the long weekend.

 

[koffiejunkie]

I took some pics last night, just in case it's cloudy tonight. Unfortunately I'm limited to 200mm, so it still looks pretty small

For what it's worth, I got my best results with 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 100.

 

[d7e7r7]

I took some pics last night, just in case it's cloudy tonight. Unfortunately I'm limited to 200mm, so it still looks pretty small

For what it's worth, I got my best results with 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 100.

Lets see some pics?

 

[d7e7r7]

Here's some links on shooting the moon:
http://www.danheller.com/moon.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2132906_shoot-moon.html
http://photographyblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/07/how-to-shoot-the-moon.html
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/moon-photography-made-simple

 

[Helghast]

So will this be all night tonight? or at a certain time?

 

[bwana]

Best I can do is a 300mm f/2.8 with a 2x and 1.4x on a 7D = 1344mm f/8 by my calculations.

 

[MegasXLR]

Clouds and rain. Will have to rely on the Bwana's and kie on this forum for some good material.

 

[calvin-]

grrr - clouds clouds clouds

 

[NetDude]

grrr - clouds clouds clouds

Same here!!!

 

[koffiejunkie]

Best I can do is a 300mm f/2.8 with a 2x and 1.4x on a 7D = 1344mm f/8 by my calculations.

That should do nicely. For interest's sake, I've been reading the forums about this, just trying to learn what people do. Someone posted some calculations on the shutter time (which most accept is ok around 1/30):

I did some quick calculations. The horizontal field of view of the 60D with 1120mm lens is 1.14 degrees. The sensor has 5184 horizontal pixels, thus one pixel covers 0.00022 degrees.

The moon moves at about 15 degrees/hour or 0.00417 degrees/second. Thus, at 1/19 sec one pixel motion blur is expected. That is quite acceptable IMO, given the degradation from diffraction and other aberrations with this setup.

In the above, they were talking about 300mm to 600mm size lenses with stacked TCs - f/8 to f/16 ish, if I recall.

So far, there's not a cloud in the sky in London - absolutely clear! Let's hope it holds.

 

[bwana]

The moon is brightly lit (thanks to the sun ) so I don't see why you'd want such a slow shutterspeed. You should be able to hand hold your 200mm.

 

[koffiejunkie]

The moon is brightly lit (thanks to the sun ) so I don't see why you'd want such a slow shutterspeed.

I imagine to deal with the small effective aperture and light loss through this many TCs. The conversation centered about moon shots at the regular distance though, possibly not full moon too. I imagine, with the moon being close, more of the light refelcted off it hits us than usually (same way a TC works, coming to think of it). I also guess atmospheric conditions, pollution, etc could make a difference too. Like I said earlier, I got good results at 1/125, f/5.6 and 100 ISO last night.

One other thing, I've noticed that between my Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.8 II and 24-105L, if I shoot them all at f/4, I don't get the same exposure. Light loss differs from lens to lens...

 

[bwana]

Wind is picking up here which is going to make things a little tricky.

 

[chau]

Let me try and get my few frames off before the clouds cover up the moon

 

[bwana]

Well the wind is throwing my lens all over the place but . . .

and for some reason the EXIF is off too.

 

[chau]

This is about the best I could get. Used my telescope as a lens, ISO 200, 1/100s. This moon seems to be getting smaller as the night goes on :/ Or is it just me

 

[koffiejunkie]

Lets see some pics?

It's not even dark yet here

You should be able to hand hold your 200mm.

I'm going to try that. As tall as the Gitzo is, it's still way shorter than me

 

[d7e7r7]

Awesome shots guys

Didn't really get anything great with my 70-300mm Sigma...