Full Moon

I have just taken some pictures of the full moon this night. It was a magical moment for me to be able to see the detailed terrains of the moon. I used Kinglux 20-60×60 spotting scope to watch the moon. Fortunately, this simple device can be used for some astronomy works such as watching the moon and Planet Jupiter. This was just an amateur scope that I used to watch birds in the forest. So, it was not powerful enough to see man made structures in outer space such as the International Space Station and any telecommunication satellites. In other words, it was impossible to see any space vehicles or rockets left by the American or Soviet Union on the moon or in the outer space. 

Yesterday, it was impossible to watch and to take some photos of the moon. This night the weather is good. Although there was some cloud passing over it, the strengh of its light could well be captured by my Camera, the Canon 200D with Tamron 150- 600 mm G2 lens. 

Full Moon

Full moon photo shot at slightly different hour

I tried several different settings on the camera to get the best result for my pictures. I set my camera to Program  AE mode, and then adjusted the exposure compensation to between -3 and -2. The ISO was 200. Although I took picture at night, I did not use flash. The moon was glowing brightly. I had to reduce the brightly by applying different values of exposure compensation every time I shot the moon. Well, it was a trial and error photography. If the subject that I shot was a paradise bird, he could have flown away seconds after I took my first picture.

Fortunately, the subject was the moon. So, I had plenty of time to adjust the settings of my digital camera. Actually, my photographic device was not an ideal tool to shoot the moon. I did not use tripod either. I used my light tripod to mount my spotting scope for moongazing. There was a car near me, so I leaned on the body of the car with to stabilize the camera. I had to aimed it to an elevation of about 75 degrees. It was guide difficult actually to shoot the moon. So, I held my breath for a few seconds when I pressed the shutter button. 

Some youth and children were waiting in line to watch the moon (inset) through a spotting scope

Honestly, the pictures of the fullmoon above were edited in photodirector where I sharpened, darkened and created more contrast to them. After finishing the photo-editing  works, I shared them in facebook and my whatsapp status.

I feel so happy now. I don't need to write lengthy article about it at the moment. I just want to show you how beautiful the full moon is. I hope that you like the pictures. 😊