Imaging the Moon

Abstract

When I first started observing the Moon in the early 1970s, it didn’t occur to me that I could take pictures of this world that astronauts were exploring at that very time. I assumed that only NASA, with its multi-billion dollar budget, could do such wonderful things. I was therefore excited to learn, a few years later when I joined an amateur astronomy club, that “regular” people could take good-quality photographs of the Moon using home-made telescopes and ordinary 35 mm single lens reflex (SLR) cameras. I still recall the excitement of taking my first lunar photographs, through a classic Cave 405 mm (16-inch) telescope that belonged (and still does) to the Syracuse Astronomical Society in upstate New York. They weren’t very good, but no matter — I was happy that I got any images at all!