Moonwatch

A day after I posted the photograph of the tree at Old Westbury Gardens, I was back there tonight for a moonwatch event.  Unfortunately there were thin cirrus clouds overhead, so the view of the first quarter moon was not perfect, but it was good enough to amaze our visitors.  Here the moon is seen in the sky over some trees at the edge of the field.

I photographed a couple of women who were looking through my home made telescope at the moon.  The photographs themselves are unremarkable, although they do give a sense of our observing session.  What is amazing, however, is the circumstances under which the photographs were taken.  It was completely dark out when I took both of these photographs!  And yet the camera recorded these images.  I was using my SONY a7 III with a 50mm f/2.8 lens.  What is astounding is the ISO (or film speed) that I used.  It was 6400.  To give a sense of how sensitive that is, I used to shoot 400 speed film, both black and white and color and under dim light there was a 1600 speed film.  So in comparison the 6400 is just an unimaginable film speed.  And my exposures were amazing as well f/2.8 on the lens and the shutter speeds were 1/3 of a second and 1/2 a second.  And I was hand holding the camera as well!  The reason I could get away with that is the camera's "Image Stabilization" function.  I don't know how it works, but it does as you can see in both of these photographs of the women, taken in the dark!  These modern cameras have such astounding capabilities!