Lunar Photography Attempt

It has been a while since I have made a post, but I have not had any photographs to post.  I have been having very few chances to photograph any wildlife.  So I decided to change gears a bit, and I tried to photograph the full moon about a week ago.  It has been a long time since I had done it, and since the last time I have gotten a better tripod and a gimbal head. So it was definitely easier this time around.  I was using my Bower 650-1300 mm lens for this though; because it is the only lens I have that can get close up to the moon.  I kind of wish I had a telescope I could hook my camera up too.  I was happy with the photographs but wish I had a better lens.  The Bower lens is not high quality, but for the price it’s great for me.  So because of the quality of the lens the photographs are more pixilated in my opinion.  After I took the photographs I did some processing, and maybe even too much processing, but I think they came out good.  My favorite thing about them is that if you look close enough you can see the craters, which you can’t see when you’re taking the photographs.  I think the next moon photograph I want to try is a crescent moon to see the difference from the full moon.  But I need a clear night to try it. 

Even though it has been a slow couple of months for me wildlife wise, I am looking forward to the winter.  I am hoping that this winter will be another productive eagle winter.  Last year I managed some of the best eagle photographs that I had ever taken.  I’m really excited that there migration will start soon.  I spend a lot of early mornings trying to take a photograph of these magnificent birds of prey.  But with my limited budget it makes it very difficult to photograph them.  Most of my long range photographs are taken with a manual focus lens.  So it is almost impossible to capture them in flight.  However last winter I did manage some flying shots with my 250mm lens.  The eagles came extremely close though, and that does not happen all the time.

I have seen several eagles lately and I hope that I continue to start seeing higher numbers.  I can’t wait, and I will try and post as often as I can over the winter about all my sightings.  Until next time.

Merry Christmas

Two days ago I took some pictures of the moon, and I finally got the chance to process them.  I was very happy with how they came out.  I was having a lot of trouble getting my lens focused on the moon, but I finally did get it centered. 

I also looked at the star photographs that I tried to take.  I noticed a weird anomaly in the images.  I first thought it was probably light reflecting off my lens from how bright the moon was but I am starting to think now that its not.  I knew that you were supposed to be able to see Saturn but I'm starting to think that the other round shapes are also planets.  I think they were blurred and look doubled because they would have been moving, and my exposure was 25 seconds or so.

I know its not the best image, but I'm hoping that someone may be able to tell me if my assumption is right.  I tried to go out again last night but a storm had moved in and it clouded over.  Maybe soon I will be able to try again. 

Lunar Photography

A couple of days ago I decided to take photographs of the moon using my new tripod.  I finally have proper equipment to support my bower 650-1300mm lens.  So I took a few shots of the full moon using a  1300mm focal length and then I put on my 2x teleconverter and took a few shots at 2600mm.  I noticed for the first time on my moon photographs that if you look close enough along the edges of the moon you can actually see craters, even on the 1300mm shot that has been cropped.  The 2600mm shot was not cropped.  This is the first time that my moon photographs have actually been clear.  In the past I had to shoot handheld because my tripod could not support it.  Having a heavy-duty tripod in this case really helped.