Don't miss Saturday's strange red lunar eclipse

[Steve Foss]

There will be a lunar eclipse tomorrow as the full moon is rising in the east a bit before 6 p.m. eastern Minnesota time. But the moon will not be blotted out completely. It will turn an eerie shade of red. It will last a bit over an hour. Here's how the AP explains it:

AP — The Moon will turn a shade of copper red this Saturday when it will be fully eclipsed by the Earth, whose shadow will blot out all but a tiny bit of refracted solar light.

Total lunar eclipses occur when the Sun, the Earth and the Moon are all in alignment and the Moon travels into the broad cone of shadow cast by the Earth.

The Moon does not become invisible, though, because there is still residual sunlight that is deflected towards it by the Earth's atmosphere, most of which is light in the red part of the spectrum.

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Moonrise in Ely will be 5:51 tomorrow. You can find your own location's sun and moon times here

More info on the eclipse can be found here

I'll be out with the 100-400L and tripod and watching for the copper eerie moon to rise over a BWCAW lake of my choosing. Always hoping, of course, there is no cloud cover. We've got a forecast for sun tomorrow.

Cross your fingers!

[floating minnow]

Thanks for the tip Steve.

[polarsusd81]

Deffinately thanks for the tip. I will be out with the new 70-200 f4. I have this old corn field just down the road from my parents house that will work great to shoot the moon. Do you think one would be best off to shoot slower speeds at a lower ISO, say 100, or would you be better off to shoot faster at ISO 400? I will have the tripod out of course. I have shot the moon before but it was with the old lens with little success. I found that shutter speeds over 2 to 3 seconds caused the surface to just look white. Oh well, enough of that, I will just have to try it out tomorrow to see how it works.

Tom

[Steve Foss]

Tom, the moon will be fairly small in your frame with that lens, and even if you use center weighted metering it could overexpose the moon because it will try to meter more for the dark sky. It won't be totally dark at all yet by that time, but you'll be best off switching to manual and underexposing everything else to get the moon right. If it's a bright white moon in a totally dark sky, that can be quite a few stops of underexposure. But since the moon will be relatively dark and the sky relatively bright, you may not have to underexpose much. Perhaps not even at all if things work just right, but be ready to switch to M and adjust!

[Dbl]

A good reference point to start is the "sunny 16" rule. Set the camera to manual and try these settings. At ISO 100 you should have f16 and 1/125s. The moon is a fairly bright object but as the eclipse progresses you will need to open up. Towards the end you will most likely be ISO 100, f8, and around 15 seconds. Bracket your exposures to get the best results. Good luck and show us a few results.

Dan

[Deitz Dittrich]

Steve, I cant wait to see what you post after this event!

I think I have a date with my Hot Tub shortly before 6pm tonight. (no picts of that please )

[Steve Foss]

Guys, the full eclipse only lasts until 6:57 eastern time, or 5:57 central. So the further east you are, the more precious minutes you'll have to work. And here, with the moonrise at 5:51, that means I'll have only six minutes to capture it at its full glory, so I'll be picking a location that doesn't have a tall treeline to hide the moon once it's up. Probably something looking east across a lake. I envy anyone along the western shore of Lake Superior tonight. What a great image that could be.

However, the eclipse will fade slowly, and I expect there also will be more time to capture some interesting images with it partly cloaked in red and partly white.

Also, since moonrise is at almost the same time as sunset (only four minutes apart today in Ely), I expect exposure won't be as much of a problem as I originally thought. As long as there isn't much or any cloud cover, the eastern horizon is still pretty bright at sunset, and the moon will be darker than usual with its red coloring, so an automatic metering may work out just right.

We'll see.

DD, no WAY would I take pics of you in a hot tub. Think I want to crack all my lenses????

[sachem longrifle]

Quote:

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There will be a lunar eclipse tomorrow as the full moon is rising in the east a bit before 6 p.m. eastern Minnesota time. But the moon will not be blotted out completely. It will turn an eerie shade of red.

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Isn't one of the signs of the end times according to Rev:7:12 that the moon will become the color of blood?

[Steve Foss]

Quote:

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Isn't one of the signs of the end times according to Rev:7:12 that the moon will become the color of blood?

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Oh geez. Sigh.