(click in the image to see a larger version)
I was out late last night doing some night photography and making some test shots before the total lunar eclipse tomorrow night (11pm Monday, April 14 1 to 2:30am Tuesday April 15, Pacific Standarad Time).
These seven images were exposed at two-minute intervals and then composited in Photoshop. I was testing out the fact that the moon is supposed to move its entire width every two minutes and these tests confirm that. The exposure was ISO 200, f/55.6 at 1/500th of a second (Canon 5D Mark II). This is a cropped section of a shot taken with a 100mm lens. I will not be doing any close-ups of the moon during the eclipse, but instead and planning to record a sequence of the entire eclipse and then combine that with an image of the landscape. The latter shot will have to be done separately since the exposure time for illuminating the landscape and some color in the sky will be too long for retaining detail in the moon. Since the entire eclipse lasts about 3.5 hours, I will do a shot every 10 minutes to give me about 20 shots showing the different phases of the eclipse.
Here's a link to some very good eclipse photo tips from Fred Espenak, a former NASA astrophysicist who runs the websites AstroPixels.com and MrEclipse.com.
It was a glorious night with a beautiful moon and great clouds. In addition to the test above I came home with several other night landscape shots that I am very pleased with. A few of those will make their way to this blog in the days ahead.
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