Total Lunar Eclipse - March 3, 2007

Raleigh, North Carolina

The last total lunar eclipse was four years ago, and I shot that the best I could with a handheld Sony Mavica camera. I did marginally okay with that, most of the shots were blurry, but I pulled off at least a few that I was happy with, but I'd been looking forward to the next total eclipse since I bought, first a tripod, and then the new Nikon a few years back, thinking I could get some terrific shots, based on the pics I'd been able to shoot of the moon using just the camera and the tripod since then. Assuming the weather cooperated.

I was in a car just before sunset on Saturday, and I'm looking back to see where the sun was going down and where the resulting shadow of the car was to see where approximately the moon would be rising, and wouldn't you know it, a monster wall of clouds was starting right at that exact spot, running the whole length of the horizon on that side. Not a cloud in the sky anywhere else, just exactly where the moon was supposed to rise. Needless to say I was worried. I've been waiting 4 years to get some great pics of a total eclipse, and the Raleigh sky was appearing to once again be not cooperative. (I've missed out on two partial solar eclipses and the Venus transit before because the weather here was conspiring against me.)

But we were patient. Sat out in the car in a reasonably empty field keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of a dark orange moon to finally show up. It was supposed to start at something like 6:03. 6:15 came around. Nothing. 6:30... nothing. Then finally a hint of orange peeks through the cloud, I scramble out of the car, set up the tripod, and start snapping. And can't figure out why nothing is in focus. DOH! Turn off auto focus and set it to infinity. Ahhh, much better. Snapped a pile of shots until the need for a bathroom break becomes slightly more important, so we head for home, figuring that the moon would be high enough by then to see over the house next door from the yard.

It WAS, except that I was having to shoot through a bunch of really irritating branches (this is Raleigh, City of Oaks, and we - and most everyone on the block - has at least 10 to 12 oak trees in their yards. Makes for NO astronomy in the summer, too many leaves to shoot through, and very tricky astronomy in the winter due to the branches AND the temps). Finally found a spot in the front yard of my next door neighbor's house that was a completely tree-free view for most of the run of the eclipse.

So there I parked it until about 8:15, until I wasn't picking up any signs of shadow on the moon anymore, which was timed very nicely since by then, my fingers were about frozen and I couldn't feel the buttons to set the 3 second timer and tweak the shutter speed anymore.

So I've GOT pictures. Yay. I set them for multiple exposure lengths (anywhere from 8 seconds to 1/500th of a second), and various zoom magnifications (say what you will about "digital zoom" not being nearly as good as a straight optical zoom option, being able to go all the way to 40X for something like this DOES come in handy.) And made good use of the self timer - less camera jiggle when you set a three second timer to go off by itself, vs hitting the shutter release manually.

And the results? Check them out. I know I'M pretty happy with them. :D


The first eight pics I was just killing time waiting for the moon to come out, and noticed that while there wasn't a moon yet, there was a rather pretty sunset that was going unnoticed up until then. Then Venus turned up, that was kind of cool. The shot with the truck? Just aiming for where I thought the moon would come up, since a lot of times, the camera picks up things that I actually can't see.

DSCN8701x is the moon's first appearance,
and I pretty much just went snap happy after that. :) 


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It should be rising right above the truck, any...minute...now...please?
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