Starlog July 1st, 2022, 9:14 p.m. local time
My prior article featured a wide sky view of the early Crescent Moon on the evening of July 1st, shortly after Sunset. As I mentioned in that article, I had two camera setups. One was my DSLR camera on tripod, for the wide view, and the other was my telescope with iPhone attached to the telescope’s eyepiece. This article’s image is from the latter setup.
I have stated before but it is worth repeating – these Moon shots of very early (or very late) crescents are the hardest. Getting the exposure, ISO, and focus reasonably descent for publication is a far greater challenge than when the Moon is much fuller, i.e. with a lot of light to work with. And because of these phases’ proximity to the Sun, daylight is still lingering around (or seeping into) the Moon’s sky area, making photographic adjustments a tad trickier than a “normal” dark sky Moon.
As an example of the challenge, since night had not fully settled, I had to “scrub” around the crescent a bit to even out the black areas of the photo.
This is July 4th weekend here in the United States. As a general rule, I don’t do stargazing on these nights, as a safety measure to eliminate the possibility of any stray explosive finding me. I know the danger is remote, but the rockets burst and fall all around the neighborhood. Plus, the sky can take on an unnatural haze from all of the artificial smoke.
I will be cleaning up the fireworks remnants on the morning of July 5th, per usual. So now starts a minimum few-days break from stargazing. I may have a non-astronomy article or two lined up over the next week to fill the gap.
Equipment Used:
- 127mm Mak-Cass telescope
- 23mm eyepiece
- No eyepiece filter
- iPhone XS
- Smartphone telescope eyepiece adapter
- Nightcap app on iPhone
- f/1.8
- 1/48 sec exposure
- ISO 24
- Focal length: 4mm
- Touchups in PaintShop Pro and AfterShot Pro
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