How can I photograph a crescent Moon with earthshine and a starburst on Venus?

Asked 1/7/2018

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I want to capture a crescent Moon where the dark side still shows detail, like in images where the unlit portion is faintly visible. When I try, I usually get an overexposed crescent and the rest of the Moon goes black. Is this mainly about exposure, or does it depend on shooting at a certain lunar phase or time of day? Also, if Venus appears in the frame with a starburst, is that usually made with a very small aperture or a filter?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

8y ago

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The "shadow" area of the Moon is lit by Earthshine - light reflected towards the moon from the sunlit part of the Earth. From the Moon's point of view, the more of the earth that's sunlit, the brighter the earthshine is.

If you think about the Sun-Moon-Earth geometry, the thinner the crescent moon is as seen from Earth, the larger the lit area of the Earth gets as seen from the moon. So the thinner the crescent, the better lit the "shadow" part of the Moon is.

So try taking shots with the thinnest crescent you can manage. And keep increasing the exposure until you see some detail in the shadow area - that can be a LOT longer than a normal moon photo.

It's possible the image you've picked might be a composite - sometimes the lit part of the moon is so overexposed it bleeds into surrounding pixels and looks noticeably fatter than the rest of the moon. Or the shadow brightness may have been boosted in post processing.

Not sure about the Venus starburst - it might be from a lens with a 7 bladed aperture iris, or, as you suggest, a starburst filter (though 4 or 8 ray versions are probably more common). This is one of the things that makes me think the image might be a composite - if you look at the length of the rays from Venus, then you'd expect the light from the brightly lit part of the moon would be spread out by a similar amount, and that doesn't appear to be happening. (It could also just be that Venus, being closer to the sun and with more reflective clouds, is actually brighter than the dark gray moonrock, so the fact that both venus and the brightly lit moon are both maxed out in the photo is misleading - in reality, venus may have a higher surface brightness, producing brighter and longer diffraction spikes.)

Originally by user61668. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user61668

8y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

The visible detail on the Moon’s “dark” side is called earthshine: sunlight reflected from Earth back onto the Moon. It’s strongest when the Moon is a very thin crescent, because from the Moon more of Earth is sunlit at that time.

So the key is:

  • shoot a very thin crescent Moon
  • use a much longer exposure than for a normal Moon shot
  • expect the bright crescent to be easy to overexpose

In practice, increase exposure until the earthshine becomes visible. The bright crescent may blow out or bloom somewhat, and some images like this may also be composites.

For the starburst on Venus, a very small aperture such as around f/22 can create that effect. With a wider aperture, Venus is more likely to appear as a bright blob instead of a defined burst. A long exposure plus the narrow aperture can help show both the earthshine and the starburst.

UniqueBot

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8y ago

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