Finally, a shot of the moon I like

I took this last night during a few minutes of good seeing. I like it but let me know what you think.

I like this a LOT!
To me, most, including me, make the moon very detailed and really to the point to where it's really just unnatural looking. (Remember, I said, "including me")
This, is representative to what the moon actually looks like, at least the way I see it. The bright parts are really hard to 'keep' when you are adjusting the bright/darks, if you get it right, the the darks look off. You have a really good 'medium' very detailed moon that has the darker detail, but still retains the really bright spots, that make the moon, the moon.

For me, it's probably one of the best moons I have seen most anywhere, not just here, and if you would, maybe you can let us know in a more detailed way how you arrived at this. (My monitor may have some to do with my opinion too, I don't know)
If you don't though, I definitely understand, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I'm just impressed, that's all.

Randy

I agree with Randy's comments, great image, I just wonder if the bright white is blown out white or not, can't tell on my non-calibrated work monitor, need to check at home.

What I really love is seeing the colors you captured in the moon, truly great job there.

What gear and what post processing did you apply?

Randy, Mike: thanks for the comments.

I was using an explore scientific 102 triplet on an atlas eq-g mount and a 5D3. I had the camera set to M and took about 15 shots at iso 100 varying the exposure time. The 1/60 and 1/125 sec exposures were the best. Everything else was to bright or to dark. I developed these two in lr5. First, I cropped the photo then applied auto tone. I reduced the brightness because lr5 always seems to increase it to much. Then I increased the clarity and vibrance slightly and applied some sharpening. I liked the 1/60 sec photo the best and exported it to a jpg.

definitely nicely done!

what lens and what F did you use?

Thanks for the explanation Dan of how you did it, and what you used.
Very nice job, and am not going to try and 'overdo' mine in the future, although I had already knew it wasn't the right thing to do, I couldn't stop myself... heheh

Thanks Dan!

Randy

Very nice...

Glad to see your new rig up and running well for you Dan. This is a great shot. I'll add some constructive criticism as food for thought, which of course is only my opinion.

Regardless of what I'm photographing astro or terrestrial, I do my best to expose to preserve data across the histogram. I liken the Moon to photographing birds of contrasting plumage, challenging for me and my digital recorder of choice. When I sample the right 25% of the Moon here I get zeros in many highlight areas. Looking at your histogram supported my sampling. While I understand what Randy is saying about accurate representation of what we see when we look at the Moon, I don't like to lose data on a shot because that means detail loss. I'm a bit of a detail nut when it comes to all types of subject matter. The only exception in astro that I can think of are stars, which of course should be void of any data at their center/highlight. At the end of the day, this is still art and we all have our own take on it. I just tend to lean more toward the technical angle and try to grab and hold every pixel from edge to edge.

Only my obsessively-technical opinion on an already great shot. Great work.

One other note, your triplet is well corrected.

Very nice.
Full Lunar Moon Eclipse is commingggg.
Now lets see what you can come with that.

Thanks for all the comments.

Steve - I went back and looked at the processed photo in LR5 and there was almost no clipping. I adjusted the whites to +4 to remove all the clipping but it didn't make a difference.

Samsen - I was ready and waiting for the eclipse tonight but we're going to have 100% cloud cover through tomorrow

Oppsssss.
Very very sorry to hear that. This doesn't happen too often.
We have Partly cloudy and or whatever it means. That is the cause for my fingers being crossed whole day as I type or do my work...
Lets see what is going to happen.
I know I should have got sick and left for the mountain tonight. Well too late now.

WOW!!!......Truly spectacular.

DanThoman wrote in post #16832323
Thanks for all the comments.

Steve - I went back and looked at the processed photo in LR5 and there was almost no clipping. I adjusted the whites to +4 to remove all the clipping but it didn't make a difference.

Samsen - I was ready and waiting for the eclipse tonight but we're going to have 100% cloud cover through tomorrow

Did you use a 400mm f/5.6 with a 1.4X Extender to capture this?

I was using an explore scientific 102 telescope and a 5D3. The telescope is 710mm f/7. Next time I'll try the 7D and a 1.4 extender. Was planning to try it last night but it rained. In fact it's rained so much lately I'm beginning to feel moldy.

DanThoman wrote in post #16835053
I was using an explore scientific 102 telescope and a 5D3. The telescope is 710mm f/7. Next time I'll try the 7D and a 1.4 extender. Was planning to try it last night but it rained. In fact it's rained so much lately I'm beginning to feel moldy.

Very cool. A legitimate telescope shot. Nice aperture. Very good.