drsnoopy wrote:
Now that is really good, Marco. You must have had good seeing as well as good optics. And it confirms just what you can do with 1 24MP APS-C sensor.
That image of the Moon with Jupiter was shot from my front porch in the Suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Normally I head to a rural area in the mountains for deep sky imaging these days, but not so often when shooting planetary or lunar subjects. I've recently obtained an EQ Mount but the endless lockdowns and poor local weather has prevented me from learning how to use it properly.
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Double-stacked Canon EF Mk III Extenders on the EOS R6 camera
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My eyes probably aren't quite what they used to be with closeup objects... but nailing the moon with Jupiter nearby was easy enough. Both the Moon and Jupiter were captured with the same exposure since they were each of similar brightness. The Moons of Jupiter, tiny as they are, required different exposure settings to have them show up. The original images captured the entirety of the lunar disk but the cropped version allows you to see the bands of Jupiter, which looked like a "dot" on the uncropped view.
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There was a night when I attempted to photograph Jupiter and also Saturn by themselves (with no Moon nearby for reference) and at those focal lengths I literally spent 20 minutes moving the camera lens around to try to find them. It was madness so I sought out a Red-Dot Sight on Ebay which I will be using tomorrow to try to photograph a comet - if the weather permits. I've used the same Red-Dot Sight to enable me to track the International Space Station as it passes swiftly overhead... since it can't really be done reliably using a tripod mount.
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Red/Green Dot Electronic Sight - which came with a HotShoe Adapter.
Photographing the Saturn/Moon occultation with the EOS M6
EOS M6 - Saturn (lower right) approaching the moon during daylight
EOS M6 - Saturn on the LCD with Live View
EOS M6 - dual exposure of the LCD Live View Screen showing Saturn above the lunar surface
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Whilst not using double-stacked Extenders, the shots below of the Moon and Jupiter were taken whilst leaning against my car for stability since I only had a monopod with me and the Moon and a bright "star" nearby were almost directly overhead when I was packing up at the end of the day. The EF 1.4x III Extender captured some acceptable details - considering how small the moon is in the fame. I've posted both cropped and uncropped images for reference. I thought that the "star" was proving problematic since I'd focus on the moon's crescent and then shifted the lens to the "star"... unable to understand why it was appearing as a disk instead of a sharp pinpoint of bright light. Then I noticed slight (faint) banding on the disk and realized it was Jupiter.
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Handheld - R6 at 400mm + EF 1.4x III Extender - 560mm (uncropped)
Handheld - R6 at 400mm + EF 1.4x III Extender - 560mm (cropped for detail)
JUPITER handheld - R6 at 400mm + EF 1.4x III Extender - 560mm (cropped for detail)
EF 1.4x III Extender + EF12 on an old Celestron Spotting Scope (via a Canon T-Mount).
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In retrospect, I think the EOS R5 should be able to capture some decent Lunar images with Extenders or even double-stacked extenders with most suitable lenses. Mostly because of the high resolution sensor. The better the image quality from the lens alone, the more integrity the images will have when Extenders are applied. Double Stacking Extenders tends to generate some strong optical aberrations when shooting terrestrial subjects. But it's not so much a problem when shooting the disk of the moon. You can sometimes get a bit more Chromatic Aberration showing up on the rim of the bright edges of the moon but that's fairly easy to correct if you decide you don't like it. It's not always distracting but it's more common when two Extenders are double-stacked together. When using a single Extender, I don't tend to notice many issues that might need a correction... and on some occasions it looks more natural to leave any CA in the shot. Especially on the bright crest of a 3/4 moon.
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Regards,
Marco Nero.
