Astrophoto of the month - August 2021 - Trapped

In this astrophoto the experience is perhaps more exciting than the object itself. In the following we can read the account of Lionel Majzik, who captured a rare conjunction in this photo, which is also refreshing among astrophotos.

Animal and sky

I had a long-standing dream to capture an astronomical phenomenon together with an animal in its natural environment. According to the experience of recent years these opportunities last only for a few seconds, and if the photographer doesn’t find the correct settings quickly, the chance is gone forever. 

The cross spider

In mid-July I noticed that a large cross spider was weaving its net between two trees in our front garden in Tápióbicske. He fixed his trap every evening, and waited patiently sometimes on the edge, sometimes in the middle of the web. I kept an eye on him, because I wanted to take a photo of him anyway. Then on the 25th of July 2021 I took a walk before going to sleep in the garden. It was full moon, so I didn’t plan any astrophotography for the night, but taking advantage of the moonlight I thought I’d look at our spider. That’s when I saw this amazing sight, which I also tried to show in my picture. The silhouette of the spider together with its web and the full moon created a truly special atmosphere.

The composition

I knew that this was the perfect time to take this kind of landscape astrophoto. I didn’t have to hurry, as my only task was to choose the right composition in addition to finding the right settings. The latter was soon successful, I managed to find a framed composition giving the impression that the spider has trapped the Moon with its web. 

The problem of the depth of field

Anyone, who has ever tried photography, has encountered the problem that two subjects of different distance cannot be sharp on the same exposure.  Because of its strong light the full moon appeared on my silhouette photos as a blurred light source, that could have been a street lamp as well. Not only would this not give back the visual spectacle, but the image may also lose the character of a landscape astrophoto. For these reasons I had to use a photographically accepted solution that authentically displays the wide dynamics perceptible to our eyes. To accomplish this it was essential to take two photos with different settings. 

I attached a Nikkor 55-300 mm lens to my Nikon D3300 camera placed on a simple tripod and used narrow aperture and low ISO. From then on I just changed the focus and exposure time. I used a shutter speed of 2 sec for the moon and 1/20 sec for the environment. The two images were taken within a minute and during the processing I managed to create a photographically authentic image using the focus stacking method.