The moon is lit by

the sun. Not a paricularly easy subject to photograph...

DON'T shoot the sun without some serious protection over the lens. This was shot thru a mylar filter made specifically for viewing the sun. Even at that the center is washed out from over exposure. You'll destroy your vision and in all liklihood your camera if you try to shoot the sun without protection DESIGNED for solar viewing.

Did you meter for the subject or the background? The bkgrd is underexposed on my CRT.

I used to get shots like this using the quirky E-TTL2 metering.

I metered the subject. I put the camera on a tripod, manual focus, set to M. Set to f2.8 and start bracketing the exposure. Then post process the poop out of it because it was still over exposed after 6 exposures and going up a stop every shot

This was a quick and dirty "I wonder that the camera will do with the sun" kind of thing. Not a lot of thought or effort went into it. You can see the granulation on the surface thought... so that was cool.

Well, not many people would have a tech shot like this! It looks so formless on the visible spectrum.

Is it my eyes, or does it say "Sylvania Soft-White - 46 Bazillion Watts" around the center?

True... but the granulation is there on the raw file. And it's easy to see that it's a sphere.

Figures I would wait until the sunspot cycle was quiet to shoot a pic of the sun though

Almost looks like an image that was projected inside a box through a telescope. You would not have a HA filter to enhance the colors of the sun wpuld you? What was the shutter speed? You stated f/2.8 aperture which seems very open for this type of shot. Cool image none the less.

Hydrogen Alpha Filter? I wish... but no. All I had was one of a filter set that I bought for my 20 x 80 binoculars held on the front of my lens. It's a mylar filter that gives the sun a bluish cast to the naked eye. I almost used an ND filter with it when I saw how overexposed the center was. I might try that tomorrow.

EXIF Image Details

Make: 	Canon
Model: 	Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Width: 	801 pixels
Height: 	601 pixels
Focal Length: 	200.0mm
F-Number: 	F/2.8
Exposure Time: 	0.008 sec. 1/125
Metering Mode: 	Multi-segment
Exposure Program: 	Manual
ISO Speed: 	400
Flash Mode: 	Off
Date: 	2006-01-11 16:16:00

If you don't mind, here's one of the Venus transit in 2004. It was awesome! The shot was taken with my old Sony Mavica hooked up to our telescope.

And this was the solar ecplise from Christmas Day 2000. Notice all the sun spots?

Wow... Those are great! What kind of filter were you using on the the telescope? What kind of telescope?

I miss those sunspots HF was open and I had antenna's up during the peak. "One of these days" I'm going to put another dipole up and get back on the bands. I don't know when. Between work and toys I can't seem to find the time to play with my toys. Maybe I need to cut down on the work part

Great shots Jon! Back to the original image. ISO 400 and shutter 1/125? Try ISO 100 and start with 1/1000 and bracket from there. Heck at 200mm I'm shooting the moon at 1/400 ISO 100. Even with the filter the sun is a very bright object. Love to try guided someday too but got to get my scope fixed. Secondary mirror lost 70% of the surface material to corrosion. Just retired from the Military and was devastated when I looked at it after all those years in storage.

Just for grits and shiggles I may take a more serious approach to taking a photo of the sun today. I literaly threw the camera on the tripod, held the filter up, and fired away just to see what came out. I was surprised. I think I'll use one of my ND filters AND the solar filter... Thanks