PROJECT SEVEN / THE BIG PROJECT
Create a moonstack
Jason Parnell-Brookes reveals how to capture the movement
of the moon across the night sky in a single composite image
T
he full moon glowing over
a city at night can make for
a ver y striking image, but
you don’t need to limit
yourself to a single moon. You
can shoot and create a lunar
timestack like this with nothing
more than your Nikon D-SLR,
a mid-range telephoto zoom,
a tripod, and image-editing
software like Photoshop.
The method is simple: take
several photos of the moon as it
moves through the sky, and then
use Photoshop to composite
them into one image. Because
the moon will be much brighterthan the landscape, you will also
need to take an additional photo
to expose for the landscape
rather than the moon; this will
provide your final image with a
correctly-exposed backdrop.
The challenge with creating a
moonstack is working out how
much time to leave between
photos. You need to ensure that
there’s plenty of space between
successive moons, but not too
much space.
If you know where you want
to shoot from, it might be worth
visiting your location a night or
t wo earlier to take some testshots at different intervals, as
we did for our finished image.
Once you’ve found your ideal
time gap, you will need to keep it
consistent throughout the rest
of the sequence – this will save
time in the editing process. You
can do this manually with a stop
watch, or you could use a built-in
or external intervalometer (see
page 50 for details of how to use
both). You just set the number
of shots you need, and the time
gap between shots, and then hit
your shutter release to begin the
sequence. Turn the page to find
out just how it’s done...The mission
O To c a p tu re th e
movement of the
moon in a so-called
timestack image
Time
O Up to five hours
Skill level
O Beginner
O Intermediate
O Advanced
Kit needed
O D-SLR
O Mid-range
telephoto zoom
O Study tripod
O Intervalometer
(optional)
O Remote release plus
stopwatch (optional)
O Photoshop or similar
editing software
MOONSTACKS