Jack and Papa Capturing Moon and Planets

While our grandson Jack stayed with us last week, he and I went out one evening to take our Weimaraner, Luna, for a walk on the east shore of White Rock Lake and to try capturing the 3-day old crescent Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury over the iconic Pump Station. 

We were partially successful. Jack got in a dozen or so shots with my Nikon D750, starting with some test shots and then bracketing to try and get both the properly exposed lunar crescent and also the rest of the lunar surface lit with Earthshine. As explained below we didn't quite get what we wanted. Had the mosquitoes not chased us off, we might have eventually got it but Luna was getting impatient anyway so we put the camera away and went for our walk. 

Unfortunately, the brackets didn't get us quite enough dynamic range to get both Earthshine and a lunar crescent that showed any detail. In the end, a single shot had the best overall exposure and detail that we were after. Although the lunar crescent is heavily over-exposed, the Earthshine-lit surface is still visible. And although Mercury is lost in the haze over Dallas, in addition to dim Mars and bright Venus you can just make out the stars of the "front-end" of the constellation Leo the Lion with it's brightest star, Regulus. 

Here is the final shot and below is a version that is labeled. Enjoy!

Photo by Jackson Eaton

Photo by Jackson Eaton

As always, click on image to view full-screen.