It was dark on my way back from work and I could see the moon shining through thin clouds. I decided this would be a good chance to try a little astro-photography. I went out with my camera and after a little wait for the clouds to disappear I snapped this. It doesn’t show a great amount of detail but it’s not bad for a first attempt.
You don’t need a telescope to take a good photo of the moon. The moon is actually a really bright object in the sky. What you do need is a tripod (or something similar to keep your camera still) and a fairly long lens. I have a 300mm lens which is equivalent to a 600mm lens on a standard 35mm camera. The length of the lens is important but for night time photography so is the sensitivity and size of the sensor (both in pixels and physical size).
A smartphone simply doesn’t have the sensor size or length of lens, however a lot of modern bridge cameras (which can be found for less than £100) have very long lenses and relatively large sensors. Photography doesn’t have to be expensive!