~ Lunar Eclipse 15th April 2014 ~
This was an unusual lunar eclipse because for the first time ever I was going to see a fully eclipsed Moon rise in the east as the Sun set in the west from my position here on the Gold Coast in South East Queensland.
But the day did not start out well at all, there was heavy rain in the morning then it cleared for a while which was long enough to capture a few images of the Sun, then the clouds came back again in the afternoon. All around the horizon were large cumulus clouds…it was a wait and see situation!
Usually I would have set up my Meade 8inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope to take images but with the weather being so unpredictable I did not want to chance it. So I made ready my DSLR camera on a tripod with a 100-400mm lens and 2x converter, hoping that I may be able to capture a few images if it cleared.
At about 6.30pm you could just make out the faint outline of a very dark maroon colour Moon rising in the south-eastern part of the sky. I tried to get a couple of shots but there was just no detail at all just a fuzzy blob, just too much cloud and moisture in the sky!
But once the Moon rose higher where it was clearer, it looked just spectacular and was a gorgeous deep orange colour…the Moon was still working its way through thin cloud but I was now getting a few good images. I continued to take pictures until the Moon had passed through the Earths shadow and by 9.00pm the full Moon was back in the sky.
I used a Canon 7D camera with a 100-400mm lens and 2x converter on an ordinary tripod. Working with this set-up is not really ideal for a fully eclipsed Moon because you have to use much slower exposure times (up to 5 seconds) it would have been so much better to have used my tracking telescope…but at least I got some images of the event and once the sunlight started coming back onto the Moon surface the images were just fine.
Please see below some images from this pretty Lunar Eclipse :-)
But the day did not start out well at all, there was heavy rain in the morning then it cleared for a while which was long enough to capture a few images of the Sun, then the clouds came back again in the afternoon. All around the horizon were large cumulus clouds…it was a wait and see situation!
Usually I would have set up my Meade 8inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope to take images but with the weather being so unpredictable I did not want to chance it. So I made ready my DSLR camera on a tripod with a 100-400mm lens and 2x converter, hoping that I may be able to capture a few images if it cleared.
At about 6.30pm you could just make out the faint outline of a very dark maroon colour Moon rising in the south-eastern part of the sky. I tried to get a couple of shots but there was just no detail at all just a fuzzy blob, just too much cloud and moisture in the sky!
But once the Moon rose higher where it was clearer, it looked just spectacular and was a gorgeous deep orange colour…the Moon was still working its way through thin cloud but I was now getting a few good images. I continued to take pictures until the Moon had passed through the Earths shadow and by 9.00pm the full Moon was back in the sky.
I used a Canon 7D camera with a 100-400mm lens and 2x converter on an ordinary tripod. Working with this set-up is not really ideal for a fully eclipsed Moon because you have to use much slower exposure times (up to 5 seconds) it would have been so much better to have used my tracking telescope…but at least I got some images of the event and once the sunlight started coming back onto the Moon surface the images were just fine.
Please see below some images from this pretty Lunar Eclipse :-)
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