These two images were taken a few minutes apart, but have different moods.
Thin Crescent Moon
Comet Neowise
Taken on July 19th about 10:40 PDT from Port Townsend, WA.
Night Sky Revisited
The John Day area of Eastern Oregon has very dark skies with minimal light pollution. The star gazing is spectacular. I was down camping out a year or two back and took some time exposure shots with a Zeiss 21mm lens. I really liked the images at the time, but I recently revisited them and realized that I had not developed their full potential in Lightroom by removing as much noise as possible. I really liked the improvement, so here’s the resulting image.
- Camera: Nikon Df
- Lens: Zeiss 21mm Distagon T*
- ISO 6400 15 sec f/4.5
Moonset over the Olympics
This was October 29th, the moon at about 13.3%. I went out to the county airport to get a clear view to the SW and lucked out with the moon setting over the small patch of the Olympic Mountains visible from that location.
- Camera: Nikon D-850 with 80-400mm lens set at 400mm.
- ISO 1250 1/30th sec f/9.0
A Very New Moon
This is a new moon at 7.3% (a full moon being 100%). I was standing out in the snow trying to catch this image for almost an hour. I couldn’t see the moon with my naked eye. I used binoculars and searched (and searched). It was also too faint to focus on through the viewfinder. (This image is cropped pretty heavily.) I was just giving up when I finally spotted the thin sliver.
I have tried whenever I could to get photos of the new moon setting. This is the newest I have been able to get (so far). I encourage you photographers out there to try to capture the new moon. It’s a fun challenge. There are several good astronomy apps out there (I use Moon Seeker) … they can really help you locate where the moon is … or plan where it’s going to be. Of course, you also need clear skies.
I was using a tripod and cable release … and used mirror lock up mode to minimize camera shake. That helps get you detail on the moon’s face … (not that there is any to see here).
Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: Nikon 300mm PF ISO 1000 1/80 sec f/4.5