Sometimes you need a lunar eclipse
February 20th, 2008 by Erich ViethSometimes you need a lunar eclipse to be reminded that we live on an amazing big sphere hurtling through space. It’s not a wild fantasy story.
And I guess my eyes are pretty good to see something that is a quarter million miles away.
Lunar Eclipse - February 21, 2008 - St. Louis, Missouri
The sun is beginning to emerge from Earth’s shadow here, semi-framed by a terrestrial holly tree.
[I took the first shot with a Canon S1Is (a 3.2 mega pixel camera with a 10x optical zoom), the second shot with a Canon A700 (a 6 mega pixel camera with a 6x optical zoom). Both of these are consumer grade cameras. I used a tripod for both, bracketing the exposures in a variety of ways--I deleted most of the photos I took. It's amazing how just a tiny bit of vibration will ruin long exposure zoomed photos. I ended up using the "timer" (time-delay) setting so my finger wouldn't shake the cameras].
February 21st, 2008 at 8:02 am
Vibration was my main problem when I took these shots with my 2005 Panasonic Lumix at about the same time as you took these.
I’ve loved the 2s delay for night shots since I got my first digital camera. I do need a sturdier tripod, and should have turned off the anti-vibration motor in the lens.
February 21st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Your pictures of the eclipse are also really really nice.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Here are some more really good lunar eclipse photos from Seattle Post Intelligencer. (I don’t know for how long these will be available).