How to Photograph and Process the Moon
Photographing the Moon is one of those things that almost every photographer tries at some point.
It looks easy enough. The Moon is bright, it's sitting there in the sky and all you need to do is put a long lens on your camera and take the photo.
Then you get home, look at the image on your computer and realise you've captured a tiny white blob with very little detail.
I have done this many times before.
The good news is that photographing the Moon doesn't require an expensive telescope or special astrophotography camera. With the right technique, even with a cheap DSLR camera and tele lens can produce surprisingly detailed results.
And once you start understanding the Moon's phases, its position in the sky and how the light falls across its surface, lunar photography becomes much more interesting.
In this guide I'll cover everything from a budget friendly setup through to a more advanced telephoto setup, how to choose the best phase of the Moon, how to plan your shoot, camera settings, using the Moon as part of a landscape composition, and finally how you can stack multiple images together using free software to extract even more juicy detail.
Understanding the Moon Cycle
Before you start planning your lunar photography, it helps to understand how the Moon operates.
The Moon goes through eight commonly recognised phases:
- New Moon
- Waxing Crescent
- First Quarter
- Waxing Gibbous
- Full Moon
- Waning Gibbous
- Third/Last Quarter
- Waning Crescent
The complete cycle takes approximately 29.5 days.
Waxing means the illuminated portion is increasing.
Waning means it is decreasing.
The Moon's position in the sky also changes a lot throughout this cycle. A first quarter Moon generally rises around midday and is high in the sky during the evening, while a full Moon rises on sunset and remains visible through the night. A last quarter Moon rises around midnight and is often visible into the morning.
This gives you an enormous amount of control over when and where you can photograph it.
A simple way to think about it
Want a Moon over a sunset landscape?
Look towards the waxing crescent phases.
Want the Moon high in the sky during the evening?
First quarter is a great option.
Want a large, bright Moon rising near sunset?
Look around the full Moon.
Want a large Moon in the morning light?
Look towards the waning gibbous phases.
Want detailed craters with dramatic shadows?
First quarter and the days around it are good starting points.
Once you understand this pattern, you can stop waiting for the Moon to appear somewhere interesting and start planning your image around it.
How I Track the Moon
Planning is arguably more important than the camera you use.
Before heading out, I want to know:
- What phase will the Moon be?
- What time will it rise or set?
- Which direction will it appear?
- How high above the horizon will it be?
- What will the weather be doing?
- Where will the Moon be relative to my foreground?
- What will the light be doing at the same time?
All this information and more can be found in one simple app, PhotoPils. To simplify it even more, it has AR built in so you can visually check the path of the moon when you are in any location and choose a date or phase that works best for you.
For landscape photography, this is where things get tasty.
You don't necessarily want to photograph the Moon in isolation.
You want to know exactly where it will be in relation to your landscape.
I will often scout a location during daylight and work out where I want the Moon to appear in the composition.
That might be:
- Above a mountain
- Behind a lighthouse
- Between two trees
- Sitting over a city skyline
- Between buildings
- Above a waterfall
- Beside an interesting rock formation
The more accurately you can predict its position, the more intentional your final photograph becomes.
Budget Friendly Moon Photography Setup
You don't need a huge telephoto lens to start photographing the Moon.
A camera with a crop sensor or full frame sensor and a reasonably long telephoto lens is enough to get started.
A setup such as:
Camera: DSLR or mirrorless camera
Lens: 70-300mm, 100-400mm or similar
Tripod: Recommended
Remote shutter: Optional
A 70-300mm lens is super useful because it is fairly cheap, widely available and gives you enough reach to start getting a recognisable Moon.
If your camera has a crop sensor, you also get a narrower field of view from the same focal length, which can be useful when trying to make the Moon appear larger in the frame.
You don't really need a huge amount of equipment.
The biggest limitation with an cheaper setup is usually focal length.
At 200-300mm the Moon will still be fairly small in the frame, but this can actually work in your favour when you're incorporating the Moon into a landscape.
(Photo below shot @ 270mm)
A More Advanced Setup
If your goal is to produce large, highly detailed images of the Moon itself, this is where additional focal length becomes extremely useful.
A more advanced setup might include:
Camera: Large Megapixel DSLR or mirrorless
Lens: 400mm, 500mm, 600mm or longer
Teleconverter: 1.4x or 2x
Tripod: Solid tripod
Filters: UV/IR cut filter
Remote shutter or electronic shutter: Recommended
You don't 100% need all of this.
A 100-400mm lens on a high megapixel camera can produce excellent results, especially when you crop.
Adding a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter can provide even more reach, although you need to consider the reduction in maximum aperture and potential loss of autofocus performance and optical sharpness.
At very long focal lengths, stability becomes super important.
Even tiny amounts of vibration caused by wind or a flimsy tripod can soften the details you're trying to capture.
Having a UV/IR cut filter attached as well can help cut glare and remove weird chromatic aberration making the processing so much easier and cleaner in the long run.
Camera Settings for Photographing the Moon
One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is treating the Moon like a night scene. Shorter the exposure the better, the aim is to eliminate as much movement as possible. So shooting with a high ISO is necessary to avoid that tripod wobble, even pressing the shutter can make for a blurry image at these long focal lengths.
A good starting point is:
Manual mode
ISO: 500
Aperture: Around f/5.6-f/8
Shutter speed: Approximately 1/125-1/500 sec
These aren't fixed settings.
The Moon's brightness changes depending on its phase, atmospheric conditions and time of night.
The important thing is to check your histogram and the highlights on the Moon.
If the Moon is blown out, you've lost the surface detail you're trying to capture.
Use a fast shutter speed
The Moon is moving across the sky.
It may look stationary to your eyes, but when you're shooting at 400mm, 600mm or more, that movement becomes super noticeable.
A shutter speed around 1/500 sec is a good starting point.
If the atmosphere is turbulent or you're using extreme focal lengths, going faster will help.
Don't automatically shoot wide open
Your lens may be sharpest one or two stops down from maximum aperture.
For example, if you're using a lens that opens to f/5.6, try around f/7.1 or f/8 if the shutter speed remains fast enough. Chromatic aberrations can affect the final image here. Just bump that iso up.
Focus manually
Autofocus can work, but I generally prefer to take control.
Use live view, magnify the Moon on your screen and carefully adjust focus until the edges of craters and surface features look as sharp as possible. Takes a little bit of practice as the tripod wobble and camera movement will make it hard to see.
Once dialed in, leave the focus alone.
Photographing the Moon as Part of a Landscape
This is where lunar photography becomes much more interesting to me.
Instead of making the Moon the entire subject, use it as another element within the landscape.
The Moon can become a powerful secondary point of interest.
Imagine a coastal landscape with a small crescent Moon sitting above the horizon.
Or a full Moon rising behind a mountain.
Or a large Moon positioned between two trees.
Or a person standing on a ridge with the Moon behind them.
Suddenly, the Moon isn't just the photograph.
It becomes part of the story.
Think About Scale
One of the biggest challenges with Moon landscape photography is that the Moon can look much smaller in your photograph than it appeared to your eyes.
This is where focal length becomes important.
A wide angle lens might capture a huge landscape, but the Moon can become a tiny dot.
A longer lens compresses the scene and allows the Moon to appear much larger relative to the foreground.
This is one reason I love using telephoto lenses for landscape photography.
A 300mm, 400mm or even 600mm lens can completely change the relationship between the Moon and your foreground subject.
Don't Forget the Light Around the Moon
Some of my favourite lunar landscape images aren't taken in complete darkness.
The period around sunset and sunrise can be super interesting because you can potentially balance the brightness of the Moon with the brightness of the landscape.
This creates a much more natural looking image.
During blue hour, for example, the sky can retain beautiful colour while the Moon becomes a strong focal point.
You may need to experiment with exposure because the dynamic range between the Moon and landscape can still be considerable.
For particularly difficult scenes, bracketed exposures are the best way to go about this.
Atmospheric Conditions Matter
Long lenses magnify everything.
Unfortunately, that includes atmospheric turbulence.
You can have a perfect composition, a great lens and perfect focus, only to find that the Moon looks soft.
This isn't a problem with your equipment.
You're photographing through a large amount of atmosphere. Took me quite a while to realize why my shots varied so much on different nights with the same equipment.
Heat rising from the ground, humidity, wind and turbulence can all affect sharpness.
This is one reason early morning conditions can sometimes produce better results, especially when the ground has cooled.
If the Moon is sitting low on the horizon, you're also shooting through more atmosphere than when it is high in the sky.
So don't judge your lens entirely by one low altitude Moon shot.
Take a Sequence of Images
If I'm photographing the Moon purely for detail, I never take just one shot.
For example, I might take 100's of frames over a short period.
Why?
Because atmospheric conditions are constantly changing.
You might have one frame where the atmosphere is relatively stable and the Moon suddenly looks significantly sharper.
This is where stacking becomes extremely powerful.
Instead of relying on a single frame, you can combine the sharpest parts of many images to create a cleaner and more detailed final photograph.
Stacking the Moon Using Free Software
There are several programs available for lunar stacking.
One of the best known options is AutoStakkert!, which is specifically designed for stacking the Moon, Sun and planets. It analyses a sequence of images, aligns them and combines the best frames while helping to reduce the effects of atmospheric distortion.
AutoStakkert! Official Website
Another option worth knowing about is Siril, which is free astronomical image processing software capable of aligning, stacking and enhancing image sequences.
For dedicated lunar stacking, AutoStakkert! is a much easier place to start.
A Simple Lunar Stacking Workflow
1. Capture a sequence
Put your camera on a tripod and photograph the Moon continuously.
I like to fire off at least 50-100 images quickly on a shoot. Use an intervalometer or in camera settings to be able to this quickly and avoid any camera wobble from pressing the shutter button.
The idea is to give the software plenty of frames to choose from. The more frames you capture, the more opportunity you have to find those moments where the atmosphere is stable and the Moon appears sharp. Some people like to use 200+ images.
2. Keep the exposure consistent
Don't change your exposure halfway through the sequence.
Keep your focus locked on manual and maintain consistent camera settings throughout the capture.
A remote shutter or electronic shutter can also help minimise vibration, particularly when using a long telephoto lens.
3. Load the images into AutoStakkert!
Open your image sequence and allow the software to analyse the frames.
AutoStakkert! can assess the quality of individual frames and allows you to select what percentage of the best images you want to use for the final stack.
4. Choose the best frames
You don't necessarily want to stack every photograph you took.
If you captured 200 frames, you might start by stacking the best 5% or 10%.
Experiment with different percentages.
Sometimes fewer, higher quality frames will produce a sharper result than using the entire sequence. The ideal percentage will depend on the quality of the original images and the atmospheric conditions on the night.
5. Align and stack
AutoStakkert! aligns the Moon across the sequence and combines the selected frames into a single image.
This is where the advantage of stacking becomes apparent.
Atmospheric turbulence means that individual frames can vary considerably in sharpness. By combining the best frames, you can produce a cleaner image with better signal to noise and more usable detail than you will get from a single shot.
Once the stack is complete, save the final image as high quality TIFF format.
Sharpening the Moon in RegiStax 6
This is my favourite part of the process.
After stacking your images in AutoStakkert!, you can take the stacked image into RegiStax 6 for sharpening.
RegiStax has been around for many years and is particularly well known in lunar and planetary photography for its Wavelet sharpening tools. The software is free, and RegiStax 6 is available from the developer's website.
RegiStax 6 Official Website & Download
The important thing to understand is that RegiStax isn't simply applying sharpening like Lightroom or Photoshop would.
Its Wavelet controls allow you to enhance different scales of detail within the image. This makes it super effective for bringing out small lunar features such as crater edges, ridges and subtle surface texture.
A Simple RegiStax 6 Sharpening Workflow
1. Open your stacked image
Open the TIFF from AutoStakkert! you saved before in RegiStax 6.
RegiStax will take you to the Wavelet section, where you'll see a series of six Wavelet layers.
2. Start with the first two layers
For lunar images, start very gently with Layer 1 and Layer 2.
These sliders affect the finer detail in the image, which is where much of the visible crater and surface texture can be enhanced.
Move Layer 1 slightly and allow the image to update.
Then do the same with Layer 2.
Don't make large adjustments straight away.
You'll often be surprised by how much difference a very small movement can make.
3. Work progressively through the layers
If the image still needs more structure, experiment with Layers 3 and 4.
The higher numbered layers affect progressively larger scale detail, so pushing them too far can quickly make the Moon look unnatural.
A good approach is to make a small adjustment, look at the image at 100% magnification, then move to another area of the Moon.
4. Don't go after the crunchy look
This is probably the most important part of the entire sharpening process.
It's so easy to look at the preview and think:
"More detail must be better."
It isn't.
If you push the Wavelets too far, crater edges can develop bright or dark halos, smooth areas can become grainy and the entire Moon can start to look fake and overdone.
The goal isn't to make the Moon look aggressively sharpened.
The goal is to reveal the fine detail that is already contained within your stacked image.
I like to make a smaller adjustment than I initially think I need, then view the image away from the software for a while before deciding whether it needs more.
5. Compare before and after
RegiStax makes it easy to see the effect your Wavelet adjustments are having.
Keep switching between your original stacked image and the sharpened version.
Ask yourself:
- Are the crater edges clearer?
- Can I see more surface texture?
- Have I introduced noise?
- Are there halos around the craters?
- Does the Moon still look natural?
- Have I gained detail, or have I simply increased contrast?
If you're seeing halos and noise, back the sliders off a little bit.
(Unsharpened Image)
6. Save the sharpened image
Once you're happy with the result, save it as a new file rather than overwriting your original stacked image.
That way you always have the untouched stack to return to if you decide you've pushed the sharpening too far, which will happen.
(Sharpened Image)
My Basic RegiStax Approach
There isn't one magic set of Wavelet settings that works for every Moon photograph.
The quality of your original capture, focal length, camera, atmospheric conditions and number of frames you've stacked will all affect the result.
As a starting point, however, I would approach it like this:
Layer 1: Small increase
Layer 2: Small increase
Layer 3: Very small increase if required
Layers 4-6: Leave alone initially
Then zoom in and check the result.
If the image looks natural and the crater detail has become more defined, you're probably heading in the right direction.
If the image suddenly looks crunchy, noisy or artificial, you've gone too far.
Also experiment with the denoise and sharpen wavelets features which do actually come in pretty handy when trying to enhance some of those tricky areas.
Finishing the Image
Once you've finished sharpening in RegiStax, you can bring the image back into Lightroom, Photoshop for the final adjustments.
This is where I'd keep things fairly subtle.
You might make small adjustments to:
- White Balance
- Contrast
- Highlights
- Shadows
- Clarity
- Noise reduction
- Saturation
You can also experiment with converting the image to black and white if you want to emphasise the texture and shadows across the lunar surface.
The important thing is that the stacking and Wavelet sharpening have already done the heavy lifting.
Your final editing here should be to colour correct or characterise the result rather than try to enhance and dig out more detail.
The best lunar images usually come from getting the capture right in the first place: good focus, fast enough shutter speed, stable conditions and plenty of frames to work with.
Capture → Stack → Sharpen → Refine
That simple workflow can take a Moon photograph from a relatively ordinary single frame to an image containing a lot more visible lunar detail.
An Alternative: Shooting Video
If your camera allows you to record high res video, this can be another excellent way of capturing a large number of frames.
Instead of taking individual photographs, you can record a short video of the Moon.
Every frame becomes another opportunity to capture a moment of good atmospheric seeing.
This is really useful when using longer focal lengths or dedicated astronomy cameras.
AutoStakkert! supports a range of sequence and video formats and is specifically designed around this type of alignment and stacking workflow.
The basic principle remains the same:
Capture lots of frames → select the best → align → stack → sharpen.
Common Mistakes When Photographing the Moon
Using your camera's automatic mode
Your camera sees a dark sky and a tiny bright object and can easily make the wrong exposure decision.
Manual exposure gives you much more control.
Blowing out the highlights
Once the bright areas of the Moon are completely clipped, there isn't much you can do to recover that detail.
Watch your histogram.
Using too slow a shutter speed
The Moon is moving.
A shutter speed that seems perfectly reasonable for a static landscape may be too slow when shooting at 400mm or 600mm.
Focusing on the wrong thing
Don't trust autofocus.
Magnify the Moon using live view and make sure your focus is actually on the lunar surface.
Photographing only full Moons
This is probably the biggest one.
Experiment with the phases around first quarter and last quarter.
The shadows with waning and waxing moons can reveal an enormous amounts of surface detail.
Ignoring the atmosphere
Sometimes your technique is fine and the atmosphere is simply fighting you.
Try again on another night.
Final Thoughts
You don't need a $10,000 astrophotography setup to start photographing the Moon.
A camera, a decent telephoto lens, a tripod and some smooth processing can get you pretty far.
The biggest improvement, will probably come from understanding when to photograph it rather than simply buying more equipment.
Learn the Moon's phases.
Track its rise and set times.
Pay attention to atmospheric conditions.
Plan your foreground.
Once you start doing that, you'll quickly realise that there are opportunities throughout almost the entire lunar cycle.
The Moon is up there every month.
The challenge is simply learning how to make the most of it.
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