Once in a blue moon

I shot it in my back yard, I took several shots at 1/2500 was the

best I have. tell me what you think

Could have had more detail. Maybe slightly over-exposed, and maybe some camera movement when the mirror flipped up. FYI...enterprisemission.com has some superb hasselblad/kodak shots taken by the astronauts ON the moon. Yes... they did go, but also did an earthbound studio shoot in case they messed up. Co-incidentally, as Captain on the Comet 4c, I was descending into Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and also listening to the moon landing on HF. Both they and us descended thru 20,000 feet at the same time. Momentous year 1965.

I tend to disagree with Thomas. Sorry, Thomas :-). Having begun doing some stargazing and astrophotography, here's my take. One, just as in studio photography, straight-on light as from an on-camera flash, "flattens" the subject. Here, the same result happened because the sun was behind the photographer; that's why the moon is "full." This flatness reduces detail considerably. Two, sometimes there are changes in the makeup of the atmosphere between viewer/photographer and the moon or deep space objects. That is, within the line of sight, rather abrupt changes are present which causes, if only minimal, refractions. This too, could explain the softness of this image and lack of detail.

Night before last, I had my FinePix S3 Pro (12mgpxl) mounted on the Meade-Schimidt/Cassegrain scope and was shooting with 4,000mm of focal length. That kind of power made it nearly impossible to capture the moon without the aid of the computer. The speed of Earth's rotation and lunar orbit is great. I had to plan ahead on framing of some part of the crescent (couldn't get the whole thing in the view). Even though the scope is mounted on a very sturdy Meade tripod, there is enough distance and joints between the legs and the scope as to allow for some shaking. Even steadily holding the shutter release cable, depression of the plunger caused vibration.

I don't see the standard linear blur caused by vibration in this picture. I just think the softness and lack of detail are due to the dirction of the sun behind the photographer and atmospheric conditions. Another thing that happens is dew, even the thinist layer can land on a lens pointing upward and diffuse the light. I have a "dew zapper" on order from Orion Telescopes now.

Yes, the image is lacking in detail; but I think this is one of those times the effort should get better marks than the results. :-)

PS: Maybe this image was loaded in image editing software and the stretching tool was applied? LOL. That would do it.