Moon/Stars Time-lapse

chippykev · Jan 19, 2011

Hi Guys
I'm trying to shoot a time-lapse with my D90 of the Moon and Stars using 55-200mm zoom lens set at 200mm and in Manual mode. However, I zoom as close to the moon as possible i.e 200mm and set my settings to not make the Moon too bright to blow out all the detail. This works fine but if I set the shutter too slow it picks up the stars but blows out the moon. Ive set the iso to 160, shutter to 1/60 and aperture to F6.3. What am I doing wrong people please!!!

Garbz · Jan 20, 2011

You've hit a fundamental problem with astrophotography. The objects in the night sky are many orders of magnitude different in brightness. There's no easy way around this.

Patrice · Jan 20, 2011

The full moon is a big light source and will wash out your view of the background stars. you might want to create a composite of 2 images - one image of the star field taken on a moonless night and a one of a properly exposed full moon.

Your star field will be a challenge to photograph with 'stellar' results. Do a search of 'barn door' trackers, stacking software, motorized equatorial telescope mounts,... etc

Cloudy Nights is a good site for beginner astrophotography. AstroStu is a member here and has excellent astrophotography threads.

TheEugeneKam · Jan 20, 2011

well i mean if you have a tripod, you can just take a few different exposure shots to make the moon less bright through editing. Better yet i would take one shot for the stars and one for the moon and just PS them together. I am a newb when it comes to this stuff, but thats waht i would do.