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Why does nobody talk about how much a full moon messes with deep sky photos?
Last week I drove two hours out to Joshua Tree to get some shots of the Orion Nebula, only to realize the moon was almost full and washed out everything. I spent three hours setting up my Celestron 8SE and a new camera only to get a bright gray sky with maybe two stars. Has anyone found a good way to plan around the moon phase besides just checking an app?
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wrenwilson19d ago
Blocking out the full moon week on the calendar is smart. I used to think I could just shoot through it, maybe get some data on brighter targets. Then I wasted a whole night on the Andromeda galaxy during a waxing gibbous. The final stack was just a flat, milky mess, zero dust lanes. That was the lesson I needed. Now I treat the moon like a hard deadline.
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valwest20d ago
Yeah, that "bright gray sky" is the worst. I just block out the full moon week on my calendar now and only plan trips for new moon nights.
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