Two nights ~ The moon and lightning

[KevinFromTexas]

I've been wanting to get some pictures like these forever. I'm still homing in my skills here and this is a work in process, but so far, not a bad start I'd say.

3 weeks ago a thunderstorm rolled through Austin at about 2 am. I took a few shots from the driveway but ultimately ended up riding down to my old high school for a better view.

The thunderstorm pics were actually taken the night before the San Antonio thread I did, so July 14th.

The 2nd set is some shots of the moon that I've wanted to do for a long time. I've been reading up on the process. This past week has been mostly rain free for the first time in months. The moon finally came out, so I tried my luck.

From our driveway.


It didn't actually rain from these storms. They just barely clipped us. I didn't even realize there was rain in the area, and I was actually going to bed, let out the dog and noticed some lightning, so I grabbed the camera and took some shots.


After the storms moved behind the trees I couldn't get a good view, so I headed down to my old high school at 3 am for the rest.




That's actually a planet to the right. The storms were moving away here, about halfway to San Antonio.




















The moon pics. These were taken over the last week. I don't have any kind of special lens, just the one that came on the camera.







Nearly a full moon. It's best to take pictures of course when it's not full since you get more craters to show up with the shadow.






Thanks for looking. Feel free to comment also, questions suggestions? I'd love to hear them as I'm trying to home in my skills on this.

[CEO]

Really great moon shots. Amazing it's taken with a point and shoot Panasonic FZ 25 @ 72 mm.

I tried shooting the moon with a 200mm lens on a Canon Rebel XTi and it didn't come nearly as good (my settings were pretty bad though).

Any photoshopping done on this?

[Derek]

Sweet pictures of the moon!

[Robert Pence]

Great shots! Texas night skies are pretty amazing.

Back in the mid-sixties, my first view of a night sky from Goodfellow AFB, near San Angelo, took my breath away. Having grown up in the humid, hazy midwest, I had no idea there were so many stars, or that they could stand out like that against an almost inky-black sky.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by CEO

Really great moon shots. Amazing it's taken with a point and shoot Panasonic FZ 25 @ 72 mm.

I tried shooting the moon with a 200mm lens on a Canon Rebel XTi and it didn't come nearly as good (my settings were pretty bad though).

Any photoshopping done on this?

Actually the camera I use is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5S, (the 's' stands for silver). Anyway, it has 12x optical zoom.

Here's dpreview.com's page on it, same camera, just in black.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/spec...nic_dmcfz5.asp

No Photoshopping. This is pretty much the raw photos. I only did some cropping for the blown up ones and some sharpening, but that's it.

This website has tips for moon photography. This page helped me greatly.
http://www.bahneman.com/liem/photos/...51007132635145

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by rob_1412

Great shots! Texas night skies are pretty amazing.

Back in the mid-sixties, my first view of a night sky from Goodfellow AFB, near San Angelo, took my breath away. Having grown up in the humid, hazy midwest, I had no idea there were so many stars, or that they could stand out like that against an almost inky-black sky.

Our night skies just keep getting brighter and brighter here, though. We live just mile from I-35 and there's a shopping center a half mile to the southeast. On nights that it's humid out the visibility is poor. The nights I took the moon pics I just got lucky because most of the humidity was kept out, at least long enough for me to get those shots. Honestly, it's been so rainy and cloudy here the last several months it was great to see the moon again.

West Texas in particular is great for star gazing, San Angelo being 200 miles and some change west of Austin. The nearest place to Austin that offers really great star gazing is Enchanted Rock State Park in Llano County, about 85 miles west of Austin. Another place is just about anywhere along the coast of course.

Far West Texas is the best. The University of Texas owns and operates the McDonald Observatory atop Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains where it has 4 telescopes. The observatory has the 3rd largest telescope in the world.

[innov8]

Great moon shots Kevin... the texture of the surface is awesome

[rockyi]

Good shots, Kevin.
It's hard to get that perfect lightning shot. I tried many times years ago, before digital, with my 35mm and wasted lots of film in the process but did manage to get a few good shots.
Even though we haven't had as much precipitation as Texas, we could all use a break from the rain.

[KevinFromTexas]

Thanks guys.

[brickell]

I've been trying to get shots of the moon and lightning in the same frame for a while, and have never done it. I got a little excited when I saw the header.

The moon shots are great. The lightning... well you better be careful. It's a bug that will someday drag you out of bed at 3am to drive 30 miles for a good storm. The foreground lights can be an interesting effect, but you can get longer shots without them.

[Stephenapolis]

Those are some great shots!
The moon ones remind me of a few I shot a couple weeks ago.