Everything about this is forgiving except focus, which is the point of starting here.
Expose for a sunlit landscape
The Moon is rock in full sunlight. Leaving the camera on automatic gives it a frame that is almost entirely black and it opens up accordingly, burning the one thing you wanted. Take manual control and start from a daylight exposure.
Focus more carefully than feels necessary
Use live view at maximum magnification on the terminator, where the shadows give the most contrast. A diffraction mask works here too, and focus shifts as the tube cools — check again after twenty minutes.
Shoot near the terminator, not at full Moon
The line between light and dark is where the shadows are long and the relief is visible. A full Moon is flat, bright and far less interesting photographically.
Take many frames and keep the sharpest
Even without stacking software, taking thirty and keeping the best three costs nothing and works: the atmosphere is steady only in moments.
Then try stacking them
This is the same lucky-imaging technique that planetary work depends on, on the easiest possible subject. Learning it here means it is already familiar when you point at Jupiter.
The questions that keep arriving
Why is my Moon photograph a white disc?
Because the camera metered for a mostly black frame and overexposed the one bright thing in it. The Moon is a sunlit landscape and wants roughly the exposure a sunlit landscape wants.
Phone or camera?
Either. A phone through an eyepiece with a proper adapter produces a recognisable Moon; a camera at prime focus produces a better one. Both are worth doing, and the phone is worth doing first.
Last reviewed 17 September 2026