Contains:  Solar system body or event
Getting lucky: Capturing the Moon occulting Messier 23!, Steve Rosenow

Getting lucky: Capturing the Moon occulting Messier 23!

Getting lucky: Capturing the Moon occulting Messier 23!, Steve Rosenow

Getting lucky: Capturing the Moon occulting Messier 23!

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Description

I think I hit the jackpot, and quite possibly just composed my most favorite photo I've ever taken.

Not only that, I got *extremely* lucky. Not only did I capture the moon, I also managed to capture Messier 23 being occulted by the moon!

This is a ten-frame HDR composite.

The longest exposure is 20 seconds! Shortest? 1/400. All shot @ ISO100.

This was the breakdown:

Nikon D5100

Meade DS2090 OTA

1/400

1/40

1/10

1/2

1 second

2 seconds

6 seconds

8 seconds

15 seconds

20 seconds

The 1/400 and 1/40 second exposures were blended after a transparency blend adjustment, followed by the 1/10 and 1/2 second. Followed through with that process until I had five master layers, then tweaked the blend levels and adjustments until I was ready to do an HDR tonemapping (which flattened the image). After that, I saved it as a PNG and uploaded it into Lightroom where I did some final curves and highlight enhancements, then exported it for the final save.

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Getting lucky: Capturing the Moon occulting Messier 23!, Steve Rosenow