March 15th 2024 Moon

For a while now I've wanted to make an HDR-style photo where both the sunlit and dark halves of the Moon are visible. The half Moon was high overhead, and not obscured by clouds, on March 15th. I took a bunch of photos and then tried to stitch them together.

Final Image

Here is the result of 19 stacked dark-half frames and 85 stacked light-half frames. Everything was shot on my Canon EOS R6, with the Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary with 1.4x, at 840mm, using f/9. The dark-half frames were shot at ISO 3,200 at 1/4 second. The light-half frames were shot at ISO 1,600 at 1/250th of a second. (Click to see full-size):

Processing

I first used darktable 4.6.1, with the "filmic rgb" module turned off, to cull the frames, crop them, and convert them from Canon CR3 files to TIFF.

Next, PIPP was used to center the Moon in each frame, and then I stacked with AutoStakkert! 3 and its 1.5x drizzle algorithm. I used RegiStax 6 to sharpen the stacked result, and Lightroom Classic for some final sharpening and adjustments.

The middle border between the dark and light halves didn't work very well, so I had to resort to a very dark area there to conceal it. I might have to experiment with exposure bracketing at many more points between the dark and light extremes to get a natural looking edge there.

This image was inspired by a recent Alyn Wallace YouTube video, and I just learned after publishing this post that he has recently passed away at 34. I just wanted to note my gratitude for his efforts in sharing his skills and knowledge through his YouTube videos.