Using a 2.99-inch Dobsonian to shoot the Moon through heavy clouds - is it possible?
place a lightweight plastic camera mount on the telescope rather than handhold the camera, thus allowing a greater ability to position the telescope, refocus as needed, and greatly minimize image motion without needing too many hands or bumping the telescope.
by Mike Otis
THE VIEW at left shows the Moon totally obscured by heavy clouds on the night of Saturday, April 24th, 2021, captured with an iPhone Xs Max camera.
Photos are taken through the author's Celestron FirstScope with two Svbony Aspheric 62-degree eyepieces, using eyepiece projection, one at 10mm FL at 30x and a 23mm FL at 13x. The experiment is to see if images can be obtained by shooting the Moon through very heavy clouds without using filters.
At left, the first step is using the 23mm 13x ocular, holding the iPhone camera above the eyepiece and observe the effects at various exposures, noting the appearances across numerous images and seeing which images improve or degrade with various exposures. Low power seemed to accentuate the cloud haze across the front of the Moon and created less detail and surface features. It is also noted, focus will change based on the varying cloud density. It would be best to
The final image shown above is through the 10mm eyepiece at 30x. The greater image scale is better at penetrating the clouds and showing lunar detail. The single prized image is software processed with PhotoScape X to remove cloud obstructions and water vapor haze. The image, towards the bottom right of the Moon shows some remaining water vapor, however it's not necessary to remove it as it does not appreciably cover the Moon. This experiment was far more successful than expected. Without the use of filters and only by adjusting image scale and exposure, a reasonable cloud penetration is possible with the Moon.
