Man in the Moon

The current spate of good weather coincided with a waxing moon yesterday, so I took advantage and popped into the garden early evening to shoot a three quarter moon. I used my soviet mirror lens, but as it is a huge weighty thing, took the precaution of adding some extra tripod support. The Maksutov MTO-1000 dwarfs my little camera, but is a wonderful lens.

I used an orange filter to enhance the shadows and took both black and white and colour shots, to maximise the opportunity. The problem with the lens is the barrel is a big around as a paint can and needs both hands to turn the focus ring, meaning getting sharp focus is a nightmare.

Having clamped the assembly in place, shaking was reduced considerably, but I still had to chase the lunar disk across the frame, as at extreme magnification, the moon moves quickly out of shot. The final image was worth the effort and an improvement on my last attempt, seen below. The two images above are as they come out of the camera and the image at the head of the post shows the post processed version, balanced to remove the haze and bring out the shadows and tone.
 

The three available filters for the MTO lens and the beast itself, over 15” long and weighing about 3kg.