Lunar Eclipse

[Diane Miller]

Did anyone get good shots? It was about 10 stops below the fully-illuminated moon, and I resorted to tracking its motion with an Astrotrac to get a "long" exposure. Not as long as I wanted as I ran into some head slippage -- will fix that for the next time. But I lucked out with wonderfully clear skies. When the moon turned off the stars turned on and it was just gorgeous.

The blue dot in the LL is Uranus.

Canon 5D3, Canon 600mm f/4 + 1.4x TC, ISO 1600, f/5.6, 0.3 sec. The brighter edge was composited from a 1/20 sec exposure. I'll do a composite pano when I have time of the phases as it came into the earth's shadow, and maybe lay it on a star field and try for a believable FG -- that might move it into OOTB, though.

[Terry Johnson]

You captured quite a lot of detail, Nicely done. The 'blood-red' effect is dead-on. Nice job. I look forward to your composite...Terry

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Diane, this is beautiful...I love it. I was awake to witness the tail end of it, but no photos.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Fabulous colours and detail Dianne. Love that little blue dot too. A forever keeper:S3:

[Don Railton]

Hi Diane

Looks pretty good to me Diane. My images are still in the camera but I might leave them there after looking at this. I was in a very poor position and I think I was getting a lot of diffraction from the ground heat, to say nothing of the street lights, clouds and trees. We did have a nice bottle of red, cheese and crackers and a good catch up with friends though..

DON

[Diane Miller]

Sounds like a good star party anyway! Bad air is so frustrating -- turbulence and light pollution are a double whammy. It had been very hot for days in our area, and I was worried about it, but by totality it was 45 degrees from radiational cooling. That means the air was pretty dry, so at least one of the possible issues was minimized.

Do bear in mind that I "cheated" to get this image, by using an equatorial mount to follow the moon's motion, to allow longer exposures at lower ISO, although still not as long as I had hoped for. Ordering a better camera mount today!

There will be another chance next April and September, with some solar eclipses thrown in for good measure

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list.html

[Don Railton]

Hi Diane,

Thanks for the link. I had planned to do some additional research using my ephemeris app to find a much better location for the next events. Next time will be a camera party with wine instead of a social party with cameras...Hiring an equatorial mount sounds like a good idea also although it wont help in the dirty air I had this time.

Best regards

DON

[Diane Miller]

Check around for a local astronomy club -- they make serious nature photographers look like point-and-shooters. An eq mount is mandatory to get the image quality of a low ISO, but may have a learning curve for polar alignment, depending on the type.

[Jerry van Dijk]

This is very impressive, Diane! Colors are lovely and the planet as a counterbalance is a very big plus. For composition, I'd crop a bit from the top and, if you have the room, extend the canvas a little to the left and downwards.
The tracking worked very well, I don't even see any trailing on the stars or planet. Very well done!

[Katie Rupp]

Diane,

A wonderful image is about all I can say as I am a complete novice when in comes to night sky photography. Thanks for sharing it.

Best,
Katie

[Morkel Erasmus]

It came out beautifully, Diane! Love the colour and clarity in the moon.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, everyone! I'm thinking now that I need a little more contrast in the brighter area.