February 7, 2013

Albumen Moon

image by Nicolas Dupont-Bloch, Nantes, France

I took this last quarter Moon through haze and between clouds. Despite these poor conditions, I was thinking I was lucky because I remembered the early photographers with their low-sensitivity films. I tried to make this image resemble an old-style albumen print, like the fine, warm and high-contrast first quarter photograph by Lewis M. Rutherfurd in 1865. Modern techniques allow a hard but noiseless contrast, unsharp mask and wavelets, and local correction of low-light areas. Thus it's possible to mimic an old-style albumen print, without loss of accuracy of modern digital images. I finally added some artificial noise to render the "film grain".

Nicolas Dupont-Bloch

Technical Details
Feb 3, 2013. 10-inch Newtonian, a Barlow lens, a red filter and a monochrome CMOS camera (QHY5). The Moon was about 22° high. This is a mosaic of four 200-frame stacks.

Related Links
Nicolas' website: Astrophography from Nantes Under Clouds

Yesterday's LPOD: Near Polar Rubble

Tomorrow's LPOD: Among the Astrophysicists

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