Capturing Super Lunar Eclipse and Orion Nebula

I recently had some pretty good luck capturing both a shot of the total lunar eclipse super moon back on Jan. 21 and the Orion Nebula.

The pictures are below. I didn’t use any special tricks other than adjusting the exposure time, the ISO, and the aperture setting. Generally for dim objects like nebula, I rely on the F1.5 aperture setting on my Samsung Galaxy S9 with 800 ISO and anywhere from .25s to 1s exposure time. Really, anything more than 1 second at the 40x magnification or so I’m using can cause motion blur.

The moon is easier to shoot, being brighter, closer, and larger. But because of those things it can be a challenge to get a sharp focus between my phone’s automatic and/or manual focus settings and the telescope itself. For the eclipse picture, there did seem to be a little distortion in the cold night air. I’ve gotten sharper pictures of the moon on other nights.

Still trying to get back to writing, but sitting down to write this little blog has been a struggle by itself.

Orion Nebula captured with a Samsung Galaxy S9 and an Orion XT8 Telescope.
The Orion Nebula. Impressive amount of color for a short exposure time with a Samsung Galaxy S9.
Lunar Eclipse from Jan. 21, 2019.
Lunar Eclipse from Jan. 21, 2019. Check the stars peeking out from around edge of the moon.
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