2008 August | jamx.org

The Moon

The moon looked amazing tonight. I had got ready for bed and just as I was pulling my blind down I noticed how full the moon was tonight. Just off full. I don’t know why but I decided to get the telescope out and give taking a good picture another shot. I had to get the telescope out of the shed, set it up, attach the camera, focus and align it, all in the dark without waking the neighbours.

I was given some advice from a friend from the dhbit irc (thanks bigcalm) about reducing shutter shake. The D60 (and my old d40x for that matter) do not allow the mirror to be locked up for bulb shots. Because the telescope is so long, and the camera hangs off the back, the shutter movement induces a large amount of shake. The solution? Really low-fi! Set the shutter to bulb, cover the lens with a sheet or card, use the remote to fire the shutter, wait for the shake to stop (a second or two), remove the card to expose the shot (depending on object brightness ~1 second), cover the lens again with the card and close the shutter.

The results? See for yourself…