Lunar Eclipse photos

I managed to drag myself out of bed at 4:30 this morning, the weather cooperated being severe clear and got a few photos of the lunar eclipse.

I didn't realize how difficult it would be to set the focus in the dark so most of my photos were not very good but I did manage to get some decent ones.

The first two were with my wife's Canon 20D, Canon 75-300 USM IS (old, creaky, used hard lens). The third was a self portrait/light paint attempt while trying my 1D with the 75-300 to compare shots. I didn't get any usuable shots with the 1D. Oh well.

Enjoy! You can see all my decent shots here.

http://www.troybates.com/Scenic/2008...g_9172_std.jpg

http://www.troybates.com/Scenic/2008...g_9189_std.jpg

http://www.troybates.com/Scenic/2008...g_9258_std.jpg

Nice shots Troy. It was cloudy here. So I sleep....

Looks pretty good Troy. I got up a little past 3:30 this morning, and watched the eclips with my dog, and camera. I didn't have time to download my pics, so they will have to wait till after work. The moon started to go behind a church, so I went in and got ready for work. I left for work early to try to find an open spot to get some more shots, but by that time, the sun was starting to come up, and I could barely even see the moon! I'm glad I got up early to see it, but I don't think today is going to be too productive!

cool shots! the eclipse here was early in the morning, and low on the horizon, so I would have had to travel pretty far to see it. Add to the fact I was up until 3:30 last night, and it's no wonder I missed it. I can't wait for a solar eclipse though, the last time I saw one of those was in elementary school, i believe.

Nice shots. Since I still have 173 unedited shots from the lunar eclipse earlier this year, I slept :p

I shot a set too, I will edit them later.

Wow, I'm impressed that I even woke up that early. Nice shots Troy! I took a few before my batteries went bad. We had an excellent view here. Watched the whole thing. It was beautiful!

Here is a series from this morning. These are all about 10 minutes apart.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1068/...da76a6dbda.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1049/...3a93e6c3a8.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1197/...e8b2ab056e.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1147/...427b4c5f7b.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1056/...e0f06f8ca4.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1347/...b1e24eca3f.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1334/...e1c38a0f5f.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mjs1973

Here is a series from this morning. These are all about 10 minutes apart.

---

Nice series Michael. It's doing shots like this that really show the limits of my lenses. It's interesting that from my view, it didn't seem as red in person as it does in my images. Your shots really show the difference!

Anyone else got some shots? Speed you out there?

I love that last one. Well done.....

Thanks Troy and Greg. These photos were all shot at 500mm and are cropped quite a bit. I had a hard time getting anything decent once the moon was in complete shadow. It was just too dark for a fast shutter speed, and my camersa noise levels above ISO 200 keep me from going much higher. I think I did shoot this one at 400. I had to use a long shutterspeed to get the color to show up, and with the moon moving across the sky, they looked pretty bad. It doesn't look like it's moving that fast, but try to take a 10 second photo of it without a tracking setup, and you get a blury mess. I had to do a heavy levels adjustment to the last photo due to under exposure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by I_Fly

Nice series Michael. It's doing shots like this that really show the limits of my lenses. It's interesting that from my view, it didn't seem as red in person as it does in my images. Your shots really show the difference!

Anyone else got some shots? Speed you out there?

---

I'm here, and I'm jealous!

We had thunderstorms come in Monday night, and though I was up at O Dark Thrity, it was completely overcast here.

Nice shots you and Michael got though!

i too tried to stay up and get the eclipse but only managed to get to 3am when the clouds began to roll in so all i got with my super zoom p@s . not before the moon dipped behind the tree tops.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mjs1973

Thanks Troy and Greg. These photos were all shot at 500mm and are cropped quite a bit. I had a hard time getting anything decent once the moon was in complete shadow. It was just too dark for a fast shutter speed, and my camersa noise levels above ISO 200 keep me from going much higher. I think I did shoot this one at 400. I had to use a long shutterspeed to get the color to show up, and with the moon moving across the sky, they looked pretty bad. It doesn't look like it's moving that fast, but try to take a 10 second photo of it without a tracking setup, and you get a blury mess. I had to do a heavy levels adjustment to the last photo due to under exposure.

---

I shot mine at iso800 on my wife's 20D. My lense at 300mm was wide open at f5.6 for 2 seconds. I tried some iso 200 shots but like you said, without a tracking setup all you get is a mess. I didn't have time to tweak at all, just resize for the web. But when I look at mine full size, they're obviously nowhere near as sharp as yours. But ya gotta work with what ya got! :thumbsup:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Speed

I'm here, and I'm jealous!

We had thunderstorms come in Monday night, and though I was up at O Dark Thrity, it was completely overcast here.

Nice shots you and Michael got though!

---

Too bad about the weather Speed. Glad you like the shots, it's opportunities like this that make me wish I had your astrophotography setup!

Wow, I love that last shot! Sorry you didn't have better luck for the eclipse.