Blog: Lunar Astronomy
Gregory Gross

Blog: Lunar Astronomy

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Smoky Moon

August 25, 2023

Permalink  |  Tags: Lunar Astronomy, Astronomy, Astrophotography, Photography

This year, wildfire smoke hadn’t been too much of an issue until recently. But rather than get bummed out about it, I decided to make lemons out of lemonade.

With my Canon EOS M200 mirrorless camera attached to my trusty 1962 Questar, I took this image of the Moon as it appeared in our smoke-laden skies:

Smoky moon
Smoky Moon on August 25, 2023. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 6400, 1/15 sec., f/16.

A bit more than a year ago, I took this series of three images as the Moon set:

Smoky moon
Smoky moon
Smoky moon
Smoky Moon on August 4, 2022. Canon EOS M200 with 3.5-inch Questar telescope, ISO 400, 1 sec., f/16 (left) and ISO 6400, 1/6 sec., f/16 (middle and right).

As I noted in this post on Cloudy Nights the next day, the effect was kind of like that of a total lunar eclipse. As the Moon set, it sank lower into the smoke haze, and its reddish tone grew more intense.

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