I wanted to write a bit more about last night’s process of capturing a photo of the New Moon.
I have a camera that I can use in an automated setting or in a manual setting. Last night’s visibility factor called for a manual setting so that I would be able to leave the shutter open longer to gather in more light from the moon that was being dimmed by the atmospheric cold air haze/fog. On manual mode, I would have been able to leave the shutter open nearer to 20 seconds if the winds had not been blowing in a storm. However, with the strong winds, the tripod was useless as the camera could not maintain a steady immovable position in the wind. The camera was hopelessly shaking with each wind burst. Even with the camera in my hands and with me resting my body against the car the gusts of wind were able to move the camera in my hands. Long-exposure was out of the question. It would not produce a clear crisp photo.
Instead, I had to use an autofocus setting and rely on the camera to chose my settings while I focused on my target. My target, the moon, was near a bank of cloud just below it making autofocus was a bit tricky, I had to keep the clouds out of the focus field. I knew I would have very few minutes to photograph the moon in auto mode. Not only was I racing the clock against the clouds that were quickly riding in on the strong winds, but in autofocus there comes a time when the level of darkness in your surroundings tell your camera it must use flash. When this process takes over the light of the moon is completely washed out by the flash of the camera. The only thing that is photographed in this situation is a black screen.
I took many, many photos last night until the automated flash took over. The window I had for the process was roughly about 5 minutes before the darkness because too great for the automated flash.
After this comes loading the equipment back in the car and unloading at the house. Then uploading the 30 or more photos to the computer hoping and praying that ONE, just one photo out of all of those would not be blurred by the winds.
This is why I believe last night’s photographing of the moon was more than just the FEW camera skills I have. I believe it was a bit supernatural that we were able to grab a photo at all. The INMS stated that it was difficult to impossible to see the moon in the North of Israel last night due to the atmospheric conditions. Yes, I think it is right to say that Elohim was on our side and it was His will the Rosh Chodesh be seen from the North of Israel.
Shabbat ShalomUpdated Jan 20, 2018, 12:38 AMPublished on Jan 19, 2018, 3:57 PM