moon colored clouds

[Ajay]

The moon was casting some amazing colors in the clouds Thanksgiving night. I know they are noisy, but I still like them. How do people manage to get the light in the clouds without the moon being blown out? Is it possible to make the moon look less like a blob in photoshop? I didn't really know how to try.

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[astrostu]

Short answer: No.

The problem is the moon is very bright - it's brighter than the day-lit sky. You would have to do some sort of HDR in order to bring out the details in the moon. You take a short photo to expose the moon properly and then do the longer exposure to get the clouds properly exposed. Then copy and paste.

Since the moon is completely saturated in your images, there is no way to bring out the detail - the only information contained in those pixels is "too bright."