Stars In Their Eyes At Dunsink

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Mooney Goes Wild 12 min 2 speakers 8 chapters transcribed just now

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What inspired Terry to learn night photography at Dunsink Observatory?

Derek Mooney 0:00

It's a beautiful song, Vincent Starry, Starry Night. Speaking of starry, Starry Nights, we're gonna say hello now to Terence Flanagan at his home in Dublin 15. Because Terry was out last week at Dunsink Observatory learning how to photograph the moon and the stars. Terence, you were at Dunsink.

Terry Flanagan 0:19

I was indeed, Derek. It's not too far from me. It's a fantastic place to go. And you and I know that when we go out and we do nighttime reports, we spend a lot of our time sitting around waiting for animals to come. Things like foxes and badgers and bats. So what do you do when you're waiting around? Well I tell you what I often do. I try and take photographs of the night sky, particularly the moon, but with awful results. Anyway, when I was up in Dunsink, I met Anthony Lynch. Anthony specialises in nighttime photography using just his mobile phone and a tripod, and he gave me a quick lesson on how to improve my results.

Unknown 0:59

Now Terry, looks like we have a break in the clouds here. Oh yeah. Can you see the moon? The full moon is coming out there. I think we're on. Beautiful, isn't it? It is, it's really nice. Now, if we wanted to take a shot on our phone, everybody out there has a phone in their pocket. Twenty years ago you needed specialised equipment. Now everybody have millions of people have a phone in their pocket. It's easy to take it out and get a shot of the moon. All you need is a smartphone. A smartphone, yeah. And most of them have manual settings now, so you can automatically do it yourself. Dial in the settings the same as you would on an ordinary camera. So apart from your phone, the only other piece of equipment you

How does Anthony Lynch teach smartphone moon photography using manual focus?

Terry Flanagan 1:32

tonight is a tripod.

Unknown 1:33

Yes, a tripod. It's only to keep the camera steady. The moon is so far away that if you're zoomed in on it it's going to be moving really quick. The tripod will just hold it really steady for you. That's all. Okay. So give us some tips. What should I be doing? Okay, so in your camera settings We want to go to manual focus. Now sometimes the automatic focus works especially for the moon, but I tend to go to manual focus. So you'll have an AF for autofocus and an MF for manual focus. Go on to MF slider all the way to the right and that will be focused perfect for you. Then you want to dial in your settings. So for a full Muncha I will do a hundred and twenty-fifth of a second shutter speeds. I keep the ISO at one hundred and the F stop on my phone is automatic but genuinely

Unknown 2:12

I do around maybe F seven to F eight. But on on the phone it's usually automatic and that will take a nice detailed shot of it. But give give us those details again. Again. So the ISO will be at F hundred, the aperture will be at F seven point one to F A And your shutter speed about one hundred and twenty fifth of a second is good for a full mill.

Terry Flanagan 2:32

Okay. Now you're gonna put that on the tripod there. It'll take you a little while now to get it adjusted so that you can get the move.

Unknown 2:38

Yeah. So for for a full mill it's fine. With the manual focus you can slide it back and forwards but once you think you have it all the way it's usually w once you slide it all the way to the right, it's usually perfect focus and you just hit your shutter. There you go.

Which camera settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperture) give the best moon shot on a phone?

Unknown 2:50

So you you're gonna put your

Terry Flanagan 2:51

you're gonna put your camera now on the tripod there.

Unknown 2:53

I'm gonna put it on the tripod and we're just gonna find the moon there by moving the ball head around here.

Terry Flanagan 2:58

Right.

Unknown 2:58

And we have it there. For the moon. For for the moon you can zoom in a bit, it's all right. You just zoom in. Yeah, I

Terry Flanagan 3:05

see that now.

Unknown 3:05

With your phone and if I slide that all the way to the right to focus, you can see it's now in focus.

Terry Flanagan 3:09

Yes.

Unknown 3:10

And dial the settings in. So it's really bright if you just hold the phone up. If you bring the ISO down to one hundred, that's the lowest, you'll see it starting to come into focus there. And then bring the aperture up to F E and bring your shutter speed one twenty fifth of a second, and there you go, the moon is that perfect white kind of grey colour fire.

Terry Flanagan 3:26

And you just take the photograph where it it's open, the shutter is open now for what?