Lunar eclipse? Not yours.

[CauseISaidSo]

For me anyway. Perfectly clear skies for the freezing cold Geminids, relatively toasty 47F for tonight’s eclipse but overcast.

rav, I’m counting on you to get us some decent pix (assuming you don’t have to work – you still on graveyard?)

[orionid]

I’ve been planning this shoot for months. One camera mounted on scope alt-az for time-lapse video. One cam on tripod for deep-zoom. IR just for the shitzengiggles of it.

Cannot has. Weatherman says snow. All I see are gloomy clouds. Same as every other major astronomical event since the 2008 solar eclipse. poot.

[SilverStag]

In Indiana: All major astronomical events = low clouds and/or subzero weather.

[CauseISaidSo]

That sounds awesome, orionid. I’d like to have seen that (not as much as you’d like to have taken it, I’m sure). Save it for 2014, I guess…

[orionid]

That sounds awesome, orionid. I’d like to have seen that (not as much as you’d like to have taken it, I’m sure). Save it for 2014, I guess…

I just checked the long term forecast. Heavy clouds and rain.

[ravnostic]

300+ days of no clouds in Phoenix, and TONIGHT we have clouds. I’m hoping for the occational break. On the brighter side (literally), the moon’s light has turned all the clouds white, instead of the usual orange I normally see from city lights reflected in them. It’s apparently that bright.

So disappointed. Hoping for some breaks now and again. Will post pics if there are any worth posting.

[ravnostic]

CISSYes, btw, I do still work nights–but not tonight. There are some breakish things in the clouds, enough to see the lunar disc and some detail. But it’s hazy–how much I’ll get during totality I don’t know, and I don’t have a clear-sky shot of the full moon for comparisons of brightness. I’ll hope it gets better as the night progresses. Here’s the best moon I have so far (300mm, 200ISO, 1/200th second, cropped but elsewise untouched in any way.)

I could adjust for the overexposure, of course, but I’d like to try and have a reference point, and see what I get as things get closer to and into totality. I’ll probably have to lengthen the exposure at some point–the difference between ‘full’ and ‘eclipsed’ is on the order of 10K-100K times dimmer.

[olavf]

We’ve got overcast here, but it’s actually turning into spotty clouds. I’m gonna watch it until midnight and see how things go. I’ll have the 300mm at the ready though…

[olavf]

Caveat: I’m not an astrophotographer by any means, And had to do my shooting with a non-IS 100-300mm lens and a tripod that didn’t want to be stable on the roof. Plus, we’ve got tons of light pollution, and had scattered clouds – before the midnight haze settled in and I had to give up.

I like this one though.

I’ll look through the rest tomorrow and see if there’s anything else post-worthy.

[Choc-Ful-A]

What the hell… I stepped out on my deck and caught some shots between clouds. Nothing came out great compared to what I’ve seen posted by our resident astro-experts. But I like some of them anyway since the colors are interesting. I shot in raw mode, converted to PNG with “auto WB” and saved as JPEG. I didn’t make any other adjustments.

I had to shoot longer and time went on so I guess I caught the eclipse in progress but not fully there. The clouds completely obscured the moon before it was over so I didn’t get to document the full cycle.

This one is ISO 400, 300mm, 6 sec exposure

And this was later and things were darker, so it’s ISO 1600, 300mm, 6 sec exposure

They are in this gallery and I’ll add more if I find anything else interesting after going through the batch of photos.

[CauseISaidSo]

olavf, looks good, I wouldn’t mind seeing a full-res crop.

Clouds didn’t turn out to be quite as bad as initially forecast, mostly just low-lying haze, but the humidity was off the charts. Extremely dense fog and condensation, so not exactly ideal shooting conditions. rav, hope you got a little less atmospheric moisture out there. The haze really shows up in the totality shots.

Here are a few of my best (200mm + 1.4x TE, so 280mm effective, 100ISO, exposure times vary):

[Choc-Ful-A]

I posted a few more in the gallery link above. Various sizes, including full res, are available. Gimp doesn’t retain the EXIF data though so ask if you want that info.

[Curious]

although it was clear here at 10:00 i had to get up at 5:00 and passed. seeing these makes me wish i’d stayed up.

[ennuipoet]

I pondered getting up to shoot the moon. It was twenty one degrees with twenty five mile an hour winds off the river. The bed was warm. I think I made the proper choice.

[ravnostic]

Sorry I don’t have anything to offer. The clouds were just too much. I couldn’t find the moon at all during totality. CISS, you got some lovely shots 🙂

[Author]

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