The Moon and Mars in close conjunction

[Diane_Miller]

I thought I had posted this but apparently not… Shot January 30 as Mars passed very close to the Moon. In the southern part of the country Mars actually passed behind the moon – a rare occurrence. (It’s surprising there is that much parallax – the moon was a lot closer to us than Mars was.)

Type of Critique Requested

Specific Feedback and Self-Critique

All comments welcome!

Technical Details

Sturdy tripod and head, remote release with IS off. Minimal tonal adjustments in Lr. Into PS for denoise and a little Detail Extractor. Cropped to 33% of the full frame. The “seeing” (thermal turbulence in the atmosphere) was awful that night and in most shots (I did about 20) Mars is an elongated spidery blob. 3-4 were sharp on it so I took the liberty of using the sharpest moon and layering in the sharpest Mars.

[gDan52 (Gary Danis)]

Diane,

That is a very crisp image of the moon and I can see that it is difficult to get Mars in the same image, given the difference in luminosity between the two celestial objects along with what you already touched upon in your discussion. I need a bigger lens…

Gary