If you have been listening to the weather reports on the news, or science postings online, there are lots of unique objects to view in the dark skies. Firstly, there is the comet ISON. It is making a trek through the inner solar system, and will pass close to the sun this month. US viewers can view the comet before the sunrise. There have been many predictions that it may be a very bright display in early morning skies.
Rocket Launch
Last night, there was a Minotaur rocket launch from the NASA launch center in Wallops Island, VA. Most of the US Eastern seaboard was in the view able area of the launch. I was not prepared to get photos of this event with any decent camera. I did not know what direction to even look for these! Luckily, my wife spotted the glow of the engines as it ascended above the tree line in our neighborhood.
This was my first experience seeing something like this. Moreover I was surprised at how quickly it passed in and out of view! Next time, I will try to get this on camera. However, for this launch, I am admiring the many photos that are being shared on social media. It could be seen from Virginia to New York. If you have never tried photographing the stars or moon, having a digital camera will greatly improve your images because of the preview on the back of the camera. Here is an example of an early morning view of the full moon:
This illustrates how a camera meter will see a scene compared to your eyes. A camera will want to have everything in the frame be a middle gray which will make everything here too bright. You want to base your exposure on the brightness of the moon since that is the detail you want to see. The houses, and other things in the frame can go dark since they are not your main subject. To accomplish this, you can change the metering mode to a Spot meter instead of metering the whole frame, or you could just quickly change the overall exposure to be darker by increasing shutter speed. This is what I did since it was so cold out this morning! Once I had the moon looking good, I just zoomed in as far as I could then fired a few frames before going back in to make tea.
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