Blood Red Lunar Eclipse

 A couple nights ago, my son texted and asked if I was going to photograph the lunar eclipe. My response was: "What??" And then, "Oh, thanks, I didn't know about it!" 

So I Googled it: Super Flower Blood Moon lunar eclipse. Geeze, who comes up with these crazy names?? I haven't done any moon photography for a while, and I thought it might be a fun challenge. As a warm-up, I decided to practice on the moon on the evening before the eclipse (Saturday, 5/14/22).

Piece of cake! I used a tripod, although probably didn't need it, as the moon was very bright. I used my trusty 100-400mm telephoto zoom lens with a 2x extender, which gives me a maximum focal length of 800mm. Pretty good! The only downside is when I use the extender, I lose autofocus and have to focus manually. The best way to focus manually is to put the camera in "live view" mode (so you can see what you're shooting on your camera's screen) and then magnify the image. As you might have guessed, it requires a lot of button pushing, which gets confusing quickly. Anyway, I was happy with this photo. Focus was nice and sharp. It was taken at 7:50PM, shooting out of the upstairs window of my granddaughter's bedroom.

The next day (Sunday, 5/15/22: Eclipse day) the optimal eclipse viewing time was supposed to be between 8:30-9:30PM. Moonrise wasn't until 7:30PM, and I was worried the moon might be too low on the horizon at 8:30PM (my neighbor's roofline might be blocking my view). I set up my tripod and camera about 7:30PM and crossed my fingers.

I got lucky! By about 8:15PM, the moon was just visible above my neighbors roofline. My first few shots were junk. The partial eclipse just didn't photograph well, with a section of the moon being extremely bright and the rest being in deep shadow. The photo above (8:29PM) has just a hint of non-eclipsed moon in the upper right. It was thrilling to watch, and so interesting how the white areas of the moon slowly become red-orange (or blood-colored), and the dark areas became blue.

8:37PM

8:39PM

8:49PM

8:51PM

 

By about 9PM, the moon was fully eclipsed and almost invisible to the naked eye, and it became impossible to focus the camera. I also needed to increase my exposure time, which is not a good thing. You might have noticed the last two photos are looking a little blurry, and it's because the eclipsed moon was too dark for accurate focus. But I learned an important lesson about taking photos early in the eclipse cycle, before the moon becomes to dark to focus on. Oh, and by about 9:15PM, I heard a voice: "Grampa, will you please stop taking pictures, I have school tomorrow and need to go to bed!!" OK Lilly, night night!

 

Linking with Skywatch Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!!