The Highest Spire against the Moon

Salisbury Cathedral's 404 feet high spire, the tallest in England, the very top bit, the cross, the red lights that glow all night, to warn air-traffic (I kid you not!) against the half moon.

This is almost all of the frame, perhaps foolishly taken hand-held and with an old Tamron catadioptric (cat, or mirror) lens, with the standard fixed f8 aperture, along with the DX cropping of the Nikon D7000, gave me some 750mm focal length, all in a lens a few inches long.

The moon is always bright and focussing (manual, of course, this lens is from the 1980's and has no electrical contacts whatsoever) wasn't a problem as the cross stood out against the face of the moon. And, even more obviously, no vibration reduction and all that! There was only one viewpoint, down to the square metre where both lined up, I could swear I could see the moon moving, at times, but that was most probably me, taking another deep breath.

Problem was getting detail into the top of the spire so as to not make it look an inky dark pool, which it was. My first attempt in editing made it look artificially light and blue, with the iso 3200 used straining at being asked further to open up, the result was noisy and ugly. So, I lassooed the moon out and lightened the rest, which still required a lot, for almost no visible effect - any further it went ghastly. Then, selecting just the main interest, lots of darkening, to the point before it clogged up and some unsharp-mask. I couldn't do this sharpening all over as it exaggerates noise and really, as you can hardly see the rest anyway, there'd be no point.

Whereas my first was too light and ham-fisted, this one is a bit dark, but just enough detail to make out the structure, so you know what it belongs to and can imagine what is below it...a little me, with a lens pointing at the moon, as mankind has done for centuries....