Lunar Eclipse

[CO Native]

Pretty cool to see, though I don't get why it's so special that it occured on the winter solstice. Tried to get some photos but the wind made it impossible to keep the camera still enough. Here's what I got anyway:

eclipse4.jpg

(289.66 KiB) Downloaded 435 times

eclipse6.jpg

(334.75 KiB) Downloaded 333 times

[JohnWilliams]

Oh Man! Thats so cool! NATURE!!!!!!!!

[KentonB]

CO_Native,

How on earth did you hold your hand so steady? LOL. It was straight overhead, so I couldn't use my tripod and I had to set my camera on ISO1600 to capture a picture... the result was a blurred mess. You'll have to tell me your secret. I must have tried about 80 different settings and got nothing close to as good as your pics.

I've attached my BEST pic for those that want a good laugh...

cropped.jpg (128.06 KiB) Viewed 4866 times

[CO Native]

I did use a tripod. If you just mount the camera sideways then the adjustment that lets you do portrait on a tripod will allow you to do shots looking straight up.

I never use an ISO over 200, otherwise it's just a really grainy photo. I was shooting exposures between 6 and 10 seconds with a 20x zoom lense which is why the wind really prevented me from capturing a clear photo. No real secrets. I've seen a lot better photos already from a lot of other people, especially those with more than just a point and shoot camera.

[climbing_rob]

Wow, what a show! We slept on the deck last night and watched the whole thing, waking up every so often. Ridiculously warm night for December! But we used our -25 degree Denali bags just the same.

I was too lazy to get out of my sleeping bag and use a tripod, but I set my DSLR on ISO 3200, f7.1, 1/20th of a second and managed a fairly sharp shot with a 300mm image stabilized lens. Amazing what these modern electronic lenses can do! And yes, I cleaned up the ISO 3200 noise with photoshop.

[MUni Rider]

It's been 372 years since the last time the winter solstice has hosted a lunar eclipse.

Stolen from elsewhere in the intertubes:

First Lunar Eclipse Solstice Combo Since 1638

The last time a lunar eclipse occurred on the winter solstice, astronomer Galileo Galilei was languishing under house arrest for suggesting the Earth circled the sun. Now, for the first time since 1638, the moon will once again cloak itself in the Earth's shadow on the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year and the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, reports National Geographic. The eclipse began at 1:33 a.m. ET, when the Earth's shadow began taking a "bite" out of the lunar cheese. The total eclipse commenced at 2:41 a.m., peaking at 3:17 and finishing at around 5:00 a.m. ET. North Americans had a good view this time around if they were willing to pull themselves out of bed in the early hours. The next lunar eclipse with good viewing from the States will occur in 2014, though stargazers eager for the next eclipse during a winter solstice will have to wait until Dec. 21, 2094. If you missed it, you can watch a video here.
Read original story in National Geographic | Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010

I enjoyed watching this eclipse from start to end. I worked a tower tonight. My initial thoughts were knowing that I could peer out the window and watch. Then while driving to work I realized that the moon was straight up and I wouldn't see a thing. Then I remembered the roof hatch. So the night was saved. When I arrived to work around 11:30 p.m., I kicked the furnace to high, opened the hatch and with binoculars in one hand and coffee in the other, I got payed to give the moon a good looking-at off and on throughout the next few hours in a warm uninterrupted private viewing location. :D Sometimes my job isn't so boring after all. No cameras allowed at work however. I'll have to wait four more years and hope it isn't a work night if I want to take a picture.

Interesting side note. My fiancée is currently working in the Marshall Islands. She was witnessing the lunar eclipse as well, but was raving at how large the moon appeared so close to the horizon, adding to it's deep red color! Five or six time zones make a big difference in viewing perspective, obviously.

[hatidua]

I Five or six time zones make a big difference in viewing perspective, obviously.

I suspect that palm trees and tropical temperatures didn't hurt the experience either

[Dorje1018]

Panasonic Fz35,iso 80, f4.4, 2.5 sec @ 01:47am

[Johnson]

Taken with a Casio Exilim 8.1 Mega Pixel on a tripod with 2 second timer. Not as good as the above but thankful we got a view and the pics turned out even this good.

[Jim Davies]

Nice pictures! (well, except for one, but my point-and-shoot pictures were even worse...)

But does it count as a "solstice eclipse" if the actual solstice isn't until 16 hours later? It wasn't even on December 21st in Hawaii. The winter ascent purists should jump on this one.

[Dave B]

Wow, what a show! We slept on the deck last night and watched the whole thing, waking up every so often. Ridiculously warm night for December! But we used our -25 degree Denali bags just the same.

I was too lazy to get out of my sleeping bag and use a tripod, but I set my DSLR on ISO 3200, f7.1, 1/20th of a second and managed a fairly sharp shot with a 300mm image stabilized lens. Amazing what these modern electronic lenses can do! And yes, I cleaned up the ISO 3200 noise with photoshop.

ISO 3200!?!?!?

What camera did you use and how much noise did photo shop remove?

I don't even bother going above ISO 800 with my old Nikon d70 especially with a shutter speed any greater than 1/2 second...

Maybe I just need to buy a new camera

and a new lense or two

But does it count as a "solstice eclipse" if the actual solstice isn't until 16 hours later? It wasn't even on December 21st in Hawaii. The winter ascent purists should jump on this one.

[climbing_rob]

ISO 3200!?!?!?

What camera did you use and how much noise did photo shop remove?

I don't even bother going above ISO 800 with my old Nikon d70 especially with a shutter speed any greater than 1/2 second...

Maybe I just need to buy a new camera

and a new lense or two
:

Canon T1S DSLR camera; not sure how many pixels, that's not important anymore (these days all cameras have plenty, some have too many pixels). Yeah, I didn't have a tripod handy, so I just cranked it all the way to ISO 3200 and took a bunch of shots at 1/20th of a second, which was a reasonable exposure. I figured 1/20th was about as slow as I could get by hand-holding a 300mm lens. 1/20th of a second represents about 4-stops (factors of 2) slower than you can normally hand-hold a 300mm lens, and supposedly the Canon Image Stab. system is good for 3 or 4 stops, and apparently it is. I took a dozen shots or so, and almost all of them are of equal sharpness.

In photoshop, its very simple to remove the noise in the black sky; use the "magic wand" to select everything except the moon and the few stars of sufficient brightness (1 click), then use the dust/scratch filter to clean it up (one more click). The moon image still has the ISO-3200-caused noise in it, but overall, not too bad.