While standing in front of our home the other night, I was looking up at the beautiful half moon that shone brightly in the evening sky when it suddenly occurred to me that although I have been digiscoping for years I had not yet attempted to use that technique to record any images of astronomical objects. In fact, despite having a veritable arsenal of high magnification telescopes at my disposal, I have only used them to view anything other than birds and wildlife little more than a handful of times. I found this to be a gross oversight that I determined to remedy then and there.
However while I thought that recording such a large object as the moon would be a simple matter, I did not take into account the fact that from our perspective here on Earth, for purposes of measuring light for digital photographs, it is essentially a giant reflector. The first attempts simply overwhelmed the camera with too much light. Correcting for that challenge, I then found that an aura still remained around the lunar images. I could see the moon quite clearly in all its magnificent detail – I simply couldn’t get that image recorded onto the camera’s SD card.
Finally, after much twiddling with the settings, all the while the sky darkening, I found the right balance and managed to record a few images with which I was satisfied (at least for the time being). There is still something of an aura present; however the cratering is quite visible. In the near future, I plan to contact my friend Clay Taylor, Swarovski‘s master digiscoper, for a bit more advice on how to record such images more effectively. Rest assured that I will be sharing his wisdom with the Born Again Bird Watcher readership.
