It was another clear night, a degree or two warmer than a few nights ago when photographing the waxing gibbous moon. My set up is a DSLR camera body attached to a telescope. Everything is manual, rather than auto, so I had to take one or two test shots to get the exposure and focus right. I had the telescope on a tripod and to get the picture as sharp as possible I used the camera’s 10 second self timer to reduce any blurring from camera shake.
I am a child of the late 50’s and so remember the excitement of the various Apollo missions. I remember names such as the ‘sea of tranquillity’. In the picture above it is the darker patch half way from the centre to the edge between 2 o’clock and 3′ o’clock. Kid’s programmes such as Thunderbirds introduced us to the ideas of space stations and miniature communication devices and computers.
I never quite got to grips with the scale. I didn’t then know that the moon is on average 238,000 miles from earth. The Sun is, on average, 93 million miles from the earth. For anything further away people began to talk about light years and my eyes began to glaze over.
There is a mystery to the universe. I think it is great that science can unlock secrets and technological advances have made it possible for me to take photos of the moon from my back garden with such clarity. But I hope I never lose that sense of mystery…
Stephen's Wildlife 