Eclipsed Moon & Rho Oph Lunar/DeepSky Image

[JA]

I had a dream to image the Eclipsed Moon & Rho Oph as a combined Lunar/DeepSky image without "cheating":D and doing them separately. It sort of worked out, but I didn't do enough prep and tried to tame the moon's brightness, even at/near totality, whilst also trying to bring out Rho Oph colours and nebulosity by using a low ISO for more dynamic range and somewhat of a too meagre exposure time of 10s. The attached image shows i sort of kind of almost did / didn't make it colour wise. Oh well there's always next XXXX year or some more processing/tweaking.

49 x 10second images at f/2.8 ISO 100, Nikon D750, Sigma 135mm f/1.8 & tracked with SW AZ GTi.

Best
JA
275903

[AdamJL]

That's fantastic :)

[multiweb]

That's very cool. :thumbsup: I did something similar but shot the background the night after once he moon left off.

[Eris]

Very nice shot JA.

[JA]

Thanks for the kind words Adam, Marc and Eris. I'll be prepped for the next one- whenever that is. note to self: check next Lunar Eclipse, use possibly 2 cameras and try somewhere dark (big secret:D) .

Best
JA

[Dennis]

Love it - well done.

Cheers

Dennis

[rustigsmed]

excellent work much prefer this to non-realistic versions.

[JA]

Thanks Dennis & Russell.

Also for anyone interested there's another eclipse coming up on November 19 apparently, though the eclipse won't go quite so deep, but it is starts very close to the horizon so not sure. Here are some details - Run the video for a simulation
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/australia/melbourne?iso=20211119

Best
JA

[N1]

Great result!
Working on something similar, with similar challenges.
The November event will be close to the Pleiades. Another great photo op, possibly a bit easier.

[JA]

Thanks Mirko. I would love to see your version when complete. You are right on the money that the Moon will be close to Pleiades for the November eclipse. A 200mm focal length would frame them quite well, but they will both be at very low altitude during the eclipse so that would be a challenge of other sorts as well with visibility and atmsophere/smog etc.. , depending on location. An over the water location might be a good bet.

Best
JA

[astronobob]

Aewesome work and great image JA, I was wondering if anyone had attempted this, I noticed scorpio was right there beside the red moon...
Good show & well done !

[andyc]

Very nice indeed JA, it wasn't the easiest target with such a short totality.
I'm about to post my attempt of the same thing, was a fun and pretty rare challenge - next time we can get nebulae next to the Moon will be an eclipse in 2029, not so far from the Lagoon and Trifid. That'll have a longer totality too.

[JA]

Thanks for the kind words Bob and Andy. It was such a rare event I wanted to record some memory of it, but alas I didn't get the deep colour/nebulosity one sees in typical Rho Oph. deep sky images which require exposures in to the several minute exposure range. I did take one 20 second exposure at ISO200 along with my 10 second set of 49images at ISO100. Maybe if I play around with that one image I could coax some more colour from that and combine it with my 10 second x49 stack. I might try one cloudy night.

Looking back (easy to do) I should have tried my modified Nikon D800 for some more red as well as my standard D750 backup. Oh well there's always 2029 for something similar (not with Rho though :D).

Best
JA