There's a lunar eclipse tonight (or early Tuesday morning). The eclipse started at 1:21am and reached totality at 2:51am. I set up my camera to take some pictures. It took me a million tries to get a setting that will take a decent picture of the moon. I still don't know how they turn out but I can see the shape of the moon on the camera LCD quite vividly. I used ISO 100 and 1/8 second shutter speed. Camera is supported with a tripod. No flash obviously. And pictures are taken with a 2 second timer to leverage off small movements when the button is pressed. At first I looked up some night photography tips and tricks to better setup the camera. However that turned out to be somewhat unhelpful because I'm not trying to capture the lights of a night view. If I used a slower shutter speed, the picture will capture more light which will just end up having a blur around the moon. I'm still not too sure about how the ISO value affect the picture. It's just through trial and error that I settled with 100. I also tested with the white balance and exposure settings to have a more natural looking moon. (Some white balance setting gave a green looking moon. =S ) The lunar eclipse is now (3:37) at the totality phase and is giving off a reddish shadow of the moon. Now I can wait until 4:22 to see the moon come back... or sleep.

This is the first time I've seen an eclipse (aside from the car haha). Hmm... it wasn't as exciting as I expected. It was a fairly slow process, taking an hour and a half to completely 'disappear'. Since I'm just looking out a window, the sight of the moon is quite small. I guess being indoors also takes away some dramatic effects of the eclipse. It's a unique experience nonetheless. Now I want to see a solar eclipse which, in my mind, seems more exciting than a lunar one. Next total solar eclipse visible in Canada is on August 1, 2008. I wonder what I'll be doing then.

P.S. I choose sleep because stupid trees blocked the view of the eclipse leaving totality.

Some pix

All pictures except the last one are taken at the same position. There are sort of two moons in some of the pictures because the right one is a glare from the window. The last picture is when the eclipse reached totality. It was a reddish shawdow in the sky.

2:21


2:22


2:28


2:30


2:30


2:33


2:35


2:37


2:39


2:39


2:40


2:41


2:42


2:44


2:47


2:50


2:52