Tag: lunar eclipse

An eclipse night trifecta…

or having a plan come together!

the eclipsed moon, the milky way, iridium flare 65
the eclipsed moon, the milky way, iridium flare 65

Everything that you can imagine is real.

Pablo Picasso

On this special eclipse night, the fourth eclipse in a tetra, I wanted to do something more than just photograph a large frame filling blood moon. I kept being drawn to the idea of photographing the stars AND having a full moon in the shot. It just doesn’t happen very often that you can see the full moon and not have the stars washed out by its glow. I also knew that at 8:11 there would be an iridium flare visible for a brief moment. Not a very bright one but having shot these before I hoped that it would be bright enough. Could I capture this trifecta?

A great deal of planning needed to take place. First there was scouting out a location and figuring out where each element would be at that one moment necessary to capture all three. For this I turned to a wonderful ap called Photopills. It gave me all of the tools necessary to plot the placement of the moon and the milky way in relation to the direction and elevation of the flare. Taking some test shots showed me that shooting at 11 mm on my wide angle lens should just barely squeeze these three elements into the shot. What settings I would be using needed to be decided close to the time of the shot as I really did not know how much light would be present.

The one thing that I was certain of was that I would have one shot, just one frame, to get this. The girl likes a challenge though and certainly I filled my time before and after with capturing the beauty of this extra large moon, the likes of which will not occur again until 2033, as it rose behind the mountains, already partially eclipsed.

blood moon rising
blood moon rising

It was a beautiful night, with perfect weather and even a shooting star that exploded during a test shot. How lucky can one girl be? Or is luck when opportunity and planning come together…you be the judge!

More images can be viewed in the gallery idaho after dark by clicking on this link to my website.

 

Chasing the lunar eclipse…

can be a daunting task in spring.

spring melt
spring melt

There is no certainty; there is only adventure.

Roberto Assagioli

I had hoped to be posting an image of the latest lunar eclipse but instead came home feeling a bit like I’d been on Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.

I had already covered the bases and done my homework for potential shooting sites; carefully taking into consideration elevation and azimuth. Living in an area where conditions can be quite different all over the county I wanted to make sure that I had several options plotted that varied in location and altitude but still had a good line of sight to the full moon.

Alas, no matter how meticulously you plan for a shot there is always that factor that you just can’t control and in last night’s case it was the weather. Yes, it’s Spring in Idaho and with that come days that could be filled with sun, rain, snow, graupel, hail or all of the above. All week I’d been charting the weather for the hours between two and six AM Saturday morning. Never did it look great but ever optimistic I chose to see my weather forecast as “a glass half full.”

Having packed my gear bag and laid out some warm clothes in anticipation of spending several hours outside, I set my alarm and laid down for a catnap. Moments later it seemed, the alarm went off and final checks of the weather showed very overcast skies. Not being one to choose practicality over adventure and with a chance that this would blow through I headed for my highest point, the top of the mountain.

Cruising down the highway and slipping quietly through town the rain began to fall. Not to be deterred, I pressed on and partway up the mountain it switched over to snow…blinding, mesmerizing, and blowing snow. This, I thought, does not for a good shot make and into four wheel drive I shifted. Reaching the top and feeling like I was in one of those snow globes that I loved so much as a child, I decided that the prudent thing to do would be to return home while my tracks were still visible.

Warm and dry as I write this post I’d say it was a good night. The image that I share today is a Spring one that for me captures the beauty of solitude; something that I’m sure many of you can relate to.

I will remember this lunar eclipse, not for the shot that I got, but for the adventure that came with pursuing that shot and I have to say that was almost as good!

 

 

Heads up…

literally!

lunar eclipse
lunar eclipse and blood moon

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Plato

Last October I got up in the early hours of the morning to photograph the total lunar eclipse and this one was going to be pretty special as it would culminate in a blood moon. A lunar eclipse occurs when the full moon passes through the Earth’s dark inner shadow.

The Nikon D 7000 has an image overlay feature in it that I was anxious to utilize to capture the whole process in one RAW image. I knew that I would have to visualize where each moon was going to line up so that they could be spaced across the image. Why not just use photoshop? Simply put…I like a challenge.

The set up involved a tripod and I also like to use a remote trigger to eliminate movement. What I found was that I did have to keep repositioning and refocusing the camera as the moon was dropping fairly rapidly between each phase. I also needed to adjust exposure times for each phase as the light changed dramatically. This was the final image from my camera after combining these five separate images using image overlay. I was pretty happy with the end result and only had to tweak highlights and blacks and remove a little chromatic aberration in Lightroom.

Before sunrise on April 4th there will occur the shortest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century…it will all take place in less than five minutes. I hope that today’s post will inspire you to get out and shoot the moon. Fingers crossed for clear skies and I’ll be right there with you!

For more information on all things sky check out Earthsky.org.