Article Universe Worlds Of Information Ready To Explore

 
Moon and stargazing have fascinated cultures around the world for millennia. For me, staring upward at countless stars in the night sky always fills me with wonder and a sense of peace.

Capturing some of that wonder was my mission while photographing the “hunter’s moon” in 2024. Photographing the night sky with a full moon can be challenging. Following the tips here might help you find success rather than frustration the next time you want to shoot the moon.

The “hunter’s moon” and the “harvest moon” are two types of “supermoons.” Supermoons aren’t optical illusions. They occur because the moon is physically closer to Earth.

Because the moon’s orbit around Earth isn’t a perfect circle, we have three to four supermoons a year. These closer passes provide photographers even more opportunities for incredible images.

It amazes me that a 400 mm zoom can produce such striking details of the moon’s surface. According to NASA, the surface of the moon is an average of more than 238,000 miles away, yet we can clearly see the impact craters with rays of debris cast outward. Other features, visible with binoculars and long lenses, include mountains and darker lowlands, which are basically impact areas filled with lava.

To get started, you will need to pay attention to moon’s schedule, exposure, composition and your equipment.

The moon’s schedule: There are several apps available for iPhone and Android, some free and some paid, to assist you in locating where and when the moon will rise and set. Tracking this information is extremely useful for photographers. It can also help you plan ahead for locations to include elements in the foreground of your image.

Everyone’s skill sets are different in this realm, so spend some time researching what’s available to find the right combination of price and features that will work best for you.

Exposure: Going manual is the best way to go when photographing a bright moon in a black night sky. Auto metering will rarely, if ever, give you the correct exposure in this situation. You will need a combination of a fast enough shutter speed so that the moon remains sharp, the lowest ISO you can get away with to decrease noise and an f-stop to allow the entire surface of the moon to be in sharp focus. In general, start with ƒ-11, a shutter speed of at least 1/15 of a second and the lowest ISO to make this combination work.

With longer lenses like a 200 mm or 400 mm, there is a general rule of thumb to use a shutter speed of at least 1/the focal length of the lens. For my shot, I chose 1/250 of a second to help eliminate any camera movement

Composition: Start by manually focusing on the moon or setting the focus to infinity on your lens. Then put some thought into what you want to shoot. Don’t just plop the moon in the center of your composition and shoot. Take some time to plan some foreground feature like a skyline, mountains, water, trees or structures to make a more interesting shot. In general, keeping the moon off center makes for a more interesting image.

I zoomed in tight to just the moon for my image so I could test the combinations of ISO and shutter speed to find the best exposure combination for my lens.

Equipment: The most important pieces of equipment you will need are a sturdy tripod to keep your camera perfectly still, a longer telephoto lens and a camera that allows you to set the exposure manually.

You might also benefit from using a remote shutter release or timer.

Patience is also needed. Combining all of the elements successfully could take some time to capture your masterpiece. Don’t forget to just enjoy the view until you perfect your night sky photography skills.

– R. Conover