After the... "stars", some shots of the moon.
I did take pictures of the moon in the past, but I am trying to experiment a little more, now. It's fascinating to look at a full moon and photograph it, but I like to concentrate more on the other lunar phases, because the details that are highlighted by the casted shadows created by the angle of the sun light, make our satellite much more interesting.
Also, the moon by itself can be a good composition for close ups, when the craters become more visible, or when its color is different, but being able to frame the moon in a scene including other elements usually is a great potential for interesting shots. That often brings challenges for the exposure because it's very likely that you'll have to handle the brightness of the heavenly body vs the darkness of the environment in the same shot – typically a scene with clouds and the moon in the frame. A double exposure is usually helpful to handle that in an easy way.
If you don't have a telescope, the best way to get close is a good combination super-telephoto + teleconverter, possibly a 2X. If you could get up to 800mm + 2X = 1600mm, that would allow you to get pretty close. But watch out for blurry photos because of the movement: use a sturdy tripod and fast shutter times, and – especially if you need to be slower when the moon is not that bright – push your forehead/eye to the camera and put your free hand above the center of the telephoto, to stop vibrations. I usually try to stay as low as possible with ISO, to reduce the digital noise on the moon surface, but of course that means a slower shutter speed.
Below are a few shots taken in the past few months. Still a long way to go, but I like them as first results. I like the one where I was able to take also the dark side of the moon. I shot 7 different exposures to be sure to capture every element of the scene but in the end I used only two of them and worked them together in Lightroom from a RAW format.
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