The full moon shot I ruined in Joshua Tree changed my night sky process

I drove out to Joshua Tree last month with my new camera, thinking a full moon would give me extra light for landscape shots. Turned out it washed out every single star in the frame, I got maybe 3 usable photos out of 60. My friend who shoots astro told me to check moon phase before packing, now I use a free app called Stellarium to plan around it. Has anyone else lost a whole session to moonlight, or do you just bring filters and deal with it?

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jessica_miller4d ago

Stellarium is decent but you've got it backwards for this one, the full moon washed out stars because it's the brightest phase, not because you didn't check it ahead of time. You really just needed to wait for a new moon or shoot before moonrise, that's the whole trick.

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