P365 Aug28: Lunar Eclipse

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Last night, after much anticipation, Naomi and I headed up to the hills to watch the total lunar eclipse. Keeping us company were our friends Anna and Leif. Leif brought along his camera gear as well and the two of us had a lot of fun trying to meet the challenge of photographing one of nature's most difficult to image natural events.

 

 

When we arrived at the location I had scouted the weekend prior, at the advice of fellow amateur astronomer and friend Sean, we were stunned to see a huge crowd gathered here. Even though at the time the sky was completely cloudy, and we were in a relatively remote area, there were at least fifty cars parked nearby and probably more than one hundred spectators, many with cameras. We set ourselves up on the viewing platform and settled in for the impatient wait for the cloud to clear. In this photo above, Anna (left) and Naomi (right) are seated with the supplies of snacks and hot drinks, as Leif stands nearby (far right). 

 

 

 

While we waited for the clouds to clear, we happily pointed our cameras through any other gaps the clouds offered us. Above is a photograph of the mighty planet Jupiter, and her four largest moons. Below is a zoomed-in 30 second star trail of stars in the region of the glactic core near Scorpius. The wobbles you can see in the lines are as a result of tremours in the boardwalk as people walked to and fro, shaking the tripod and making the star trails look like hundreds of little seismographs. This shows the importance of a sturdy base for the camera when taking star photos!

 

 

 

 

An extreme challenge to shoot, this is our Moon in eclipse, near the deepest, darkest, reddest part of the spectacle. It is so challenging to shoot a lunar eclipse for a number of reasons: it is less than one thousandth of its normal brightness, which makes it extremely difficult to focus on, and also requires a longer exposure, which means that the moon drifts during the shot, causing it to 'smear' and look blurred. Trying a variety of settings and techniques, I managed to capture the above photo, which I think was my best close up photo of the eclipse.

 

 

By this time, we had moved to a new observation point a little down the hill to get away from the bright lights and the increasingly obnoxious crowd. I had just enough time to quickly set up the flash and umbrella on a stand to get a group photo before the eclipsed moon. If it looks to you like we are cut out and stuck on front of the photo, that's the effect of the flash. I can assure you we were actually in front of the moon for this photo. This is a 30 second exposure, set to capture the moon, with the flash firing at the beginning to illuminate us. We then stood as still as we could for the rest of the 30 seconds to prevent us from looking like ghosts as light from behind us would otherwise have been recorded by the camera. Of course it's impossible to hold completely still for that long, so that's why the edges of our heads looks a bit funny, especially Leif and myself. 

 

 

Eventually the Moon started to come out of the Earth's shadow, and we were impressed by the incredible difference in light between the eclipsed part and the sliver of illuminated moon. Within only minutes we were able to walk around by the light of the moon, whereas during the eclipse we needed a torch.

 

 

Just before we packed up and headed home, I took this fisheye photo of almost the whole sky with the partially eclipsed moon halfway across the sky from the Milky Way.

 

It was a fun and exciting night, and after an hour and a half of frustration and anticipation, waiting for the clouds to clear, a truly wonderous reward for our patience! 

 

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