Once in a Blue Moon: The late August supermoon with the Pentax X70 Bridge Camera, 31 August 2023

Once in a Blue Moon: The late August supermoon with the Pentax X70 Bridge Camera, 31 August 2023

A fews days ago I tested the Pentax X70 bridge camera and was blown away by the superzoom function. I wondered at the time what the Moon would look like through this camera, well tonight it was the full Moon and I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to see how well the Pentax X70 could handle simple astrophotography. 

This full Moon was quite special as it was the second full Moon in August, making it a 'Blue Moon'. This has nothing to do with the actual colour of the Moon, so it doesn't actually look blue, but is more a seasonal thing. 

Last time I photographed the Moon with the Pentax it was hand held, but this time I wanted to mount the camera on a tripod. Once mounted I dialled the camera to manual and tried to adjust the exposure. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to change the shutter speeds or aperture so was left with the exposure that ir was set to. Thankfully, 1/200s at f5,6 was almost perfect. 

I let the camera stabilise and adjusted the tripod so that it was roughly central in the frame. Pressing the shutter button half way adjusted the auto focus and a full press took a shot. I took several images at various magnifications and that was it.

The results came out rather well. There was a little fuzziness, I wasn't sure if that was because of a slight overexposure or it was too much for the sensor, but on the whole I was happy and I'm determined to try again. I would like to get the moon in false colour, but this camera does not have RAW file ability so I'm not sure how well this will work. 

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