I don't know if it's living in the northern latitudes or just personal interest, but I pay attention to the heavens. As such, we just passed the autumnal equinox; that day in the fall when daylight and dark are equal all over the planet. (The vernal equinox is March 21st.) Among those things that means to us in the higher lattitudes is night that's actually dark enough to see stars. It's been several months since that was a real possibility unless you wanted to be up skygazing between 2300 and 0200.
 
Anyway, my daughter the budding photographer, decided she wanted to take some pictures of the rising moon. Shortly she was back in the house complaining that the camera was "Doing that thing again where it 'stays on' too long and the pictures are blurry." Grasping the 'teachable moment' I told her I would show her how to take long-exposure photographs.
 
Here are the results of that exercise.
 
The rising moon. It's actually completely dark when this picture is taken, but the moon is providing a lot of light for an 8-second exposure.

 
Here, a little while later, the moon is in the trees and the stars can be seen a bit better. Lengthening the exposure gives an etherial tone to the picture.

 
Here is looking to the eastern sky:

 
Here's the southern sky:

 
And the western sky:

 
Here's a picture of Venus rising over the Chugach mountains. It looks large because the exposure was 30 seconds.

 
Paul

WOW!!! totally brilliant photographs sooooo jelous lol!
 
Thanks for shareing :)
 
Jeni
***

Paul,

............WOW!.............

Is this Kaitlan or Erin that is the "budding" photographer?

........WOW.2!!!!!......

Ol' John:Banghead:

Paul, a standard setting for film cameras for a clear sky moon shot is just , f11 at 1/60sec with iso 64 color film, same as a normal shot during the day, using a lens of about 50mm, f2 for 35 mm film.
I suppose you are using an equitorial mount with clock drive as you have no streaks showing in the time exposures.
Tell Kat hi from Venie and Don.

QuoteI suppose you are using an equitorial mount with clock drive as you have no streaks showing in the time exposures.

Nope. Just mounted on a good tripod. I'll post a picture show some streaking with longer exposure and higher focal length. With short focal length ~28mm, and 30 second or less exposure, you can just start to see movement. Higher focal lengths will exascerbate the problem quickly. If you look at the second picture - the "etherial" one - you can see a little movement. ALSO, these images have had the contrast enchanced in post processing. The original digital images were very dark with only a few stars visible. Through most of the winter, Orion is always directly off my porch. When it comes into clear view, I'll get some pictures. For those that don't recognize the constellation Orion, he's "The Hunter".
 
A 60th of a second seems AWFUL fast for f11, ISO 64 color film to me. Even at 50mm. The first picture above was f4.0, ISO 200, at ~28 mm and the exposure was a 8 full seconds. The moon may look full in the image, but it was actually a half-moon, which in combination with the 28mm focal length might be the cause for the extended exposure. However, the f4.0 and the 200 speed should have made up for a lot of that I would have thought.
 
The budding fotog is Caitlin, John.
 
I'll pass on your accolades.
 
Paul

That first shot is especially great. To see that out your window everyday must be wonderful.

Great pics......I love the stars and moon. Regards, Rick.

Beautiful, just beautiful.
Gods country for sure.