Dayton, Ohio, astroimager John Chumack has a way of capturing one cool astroimage after another, and he’s done it again by sending this neat shot of the Moon and the Pleiades star cluster. As John puts it, “It can be a real challenge to shoot anything deep-sky when it is near the bright glow of the Moon. But I was able to process through the Moon’s bright glow to show the waning gibbous phase, instead of just the usual overexposed white blob!”
John used a Canon Rebel Xsi camera and 70-300mm lens set to 130mm at f/8 and ISO 800 for a 20-second exposure on a tracking mount. He took the photo from Commerce, Michigan, on September 18, 2011, at 12:40 a.m. CDT.
Thanks for sharing, John!