I've been wanting to try my hand at astrophotography but the moon has been very prominent in the night sky recently, and that is bad for taking pictures of anything else in the sky except the moon, so... Last night I went out and took some pics of the moon.
I was on a mission to see what difference there was between my Nikon Coolpix P610, a "prosumer" camera with a 60X zoom lens that has always impressed me with the moon shots it could take. I now also own a Canon M3 mirrorless (DSLR quality camera) which I had mounted on the back of a Celestron C90 spotting scope at prime focus with a T adapter. Most would assume the M3 setup would be superior, and they would be right, but the P610 continues to impress, seeing that it is all in one nice tidy package.
The full moon shots look almost identical:
Nikon P610:
Canon M3 w/C90:
..that is until you get a little closer and then the difference is apparent. Since the P610 was already maxxed out on magnification I had to zoom in on the existing image for comparison. For the M3 I used a 2x Barlow T adapter so it's image is it's original resolution.
P610:
M3:
Here's a vid I made with the M3 setup of the moon scrolling by with the earth's rotation. The jelly effect is from air currents in the atmosphere:
I was on a mission to see what difference there was between my Nikon Coolpix P610, a "prosumer" camera with a 60X zoom lens that has always impressed me with the moon shots it could take. I now also own a Canon M3 mirrorless (DSLR quality camera) which I had mounted on the back of a Celestron C90 spotting scope at prime focus with a T adapter. Most would assume the M3 setup would be superior, and they would be right, but the P610 continues to impress, seeing that it is all in one nice tidy package.
The full moon shots look almost identical:
Nikon P610:
Canon M3 w/C90:
..that is until you get a little closer and then the difference is apparent. Since the P610 was already maxxed out on magnification I had to zoom in on the existing image for comparison. For the M3 I used a 2x Barlow T adapter so it's image is it's original resolution.
P610:
M3:
Here's a vid I made with the M3 setup of the moon scrolling by with the earth's rotation. The jelly effect is from air currents in the atmosphere:
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