Total Lunar Eclipse

[mmeyer]

I just wanted to let everyone know if they didn't already that Wed. Feb. 20 will have a total lunar eclipse that we should be able to see between 9pm and 10pm.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

[finnbay]

Thanks, Mike. I had seen that there was going to be one, but couldn't remember when.

[Steve Foss]

Birthday Boy, it's worth a try.

Most often, shooting the lunar eclipse isn't any different than shooting all the moon phases in a single night. In other words, you have to TELL people it's shots of an eclipse for them to realize it.

But under the right lighting conditions one can still see the rest of the darkened moon with an eerie orange/red/yellow glow, and that's what I'm going to hope for. One nice thing is that, by that time of night, the moon will be high in the sky, not far from half way across it's nighttime track. It will have cleared the horizon and the haze associated with the horizon's shallow angle and should be very clear, if the sky isn't cloudy.

Good luck everyone, and Mike, thanks for the info!

Those of you with the ability to set manual exposure or use exposure compensation, remember to take some test shots! My method will be to take test shots before the eclipse begins, using the histogram and "exposing to the right" using exposure compensation to get the highlights as far to the right as possible without blowing them out, then duplicating those settings on manual exposure or using evauative metering and the camera's autobracketing feature.

As long as there's even a sliver of light left of the moon, you'll know that way it won't be blown out. Once the moon is completely covered, assuming there's enough light to capture the darkened moon, I'll switch to Av and fire off a few quick frames and then use EC to make sure it's exposed to the right just right. Autofocus may not want to function just then because there'll be little contrast on the moon's surface, but manual focus always works.

Good luck, everyone!