What a spectacular lunar eclipse! The clouds parted long enough for us to watch it in its entirety. I set up an amateur telescope to get a better look, which was somewhat challenging. It is difficult to find the moon within the viewfinder - and then the slightest jar points it somewhere into outer space, and of course, everything is upside down and backwards, so you have to take that into account in finding the moon again!
So I set up my camera in an attempt to capture the eclipse in all its drama. I am no pro – but by using a 300 mm lens, a 30-sec exposure, an ISO of 1600 – and then setting the time release to minimize shake, this is what I got. Ok – so it doesn’t look like the eclipse – but it IS rather strange, no?
I think it looks good.It definitely shows the shadow.What were your skies like and what was the temps?.I had partly cloudy skies with temps in the low teens F.I didn’t get to see the eclipse from start to finish.Just as the moon hit totality it clouded over and started to snow.Heh,and I listened to the local weather forecasters….my bad
!.They have a hard enough time predicting when the sun will rise,let alone giving a forecast that is accurate.Oh well,at least I got to see this one.The next one won’t happen until Dec 21,2010.
Regards,
Andrew
By: Andrew on February 22, 2008
at 3:22 pm
I think it was about mid-30s here. Fairly warm. The clouds were moving in & out, so early during the eclipse, it was partially hidden. We live close to the saltwater, so we get a lot of marine clouds. We felt pretty fortunate to get a clear night – on the night of the eclipse – at a time when we could all watch it. Everything fell into place! Others have posted much better photos. I thought maybe if I hadn’t taken so much time messing with the telescope, maybe I could have experimented more with the camera. I am not sure what that planet apparition is behind the moon! Surely we didn’t move that much in 30 seconds!
Thanks for commenting!
By: blythelight on February 22, 2008
at 3:45 pm
Beautiful!!!!
By: shussmallworld on February 23, 2008
at 4:24 am
Thanks, Dave & Shu! – I think what I did “wrong” was that I focused the camera, but I forgot to switch it to manual focus – so the camera, during that 30-sec exposure, probably spent time figuring it out – and maybe that’s why I got the strange alternate universe eclipse in the background. (?) Sometimes mistakes lead to interesting results.
By: blythelight on February 23, 2008
at 4:43 am