Lunar Eclipse Moon Trail
For a bunch of years, I've wanted to do a long exposure showing the transition in color and brightness of the moon during a lunar eclipse. I tried this in 2015 on Mauna Kea, but was foiled by clouds. Also, stacking a bunch of shorter exposures led to odd artifacts in the image, so I decided to do a single long exposure.
To achieve the goal of capturing an entire eclipse in a single exposure, I needed to figure out the proper camera settings. This was especially tricky because the 2022 eclipse began during blue hour, so there was significant light at the beginning (due to twilight) and end (due to the full moon). I spent a lot of time digging through my Yosemite timlepase videos and calculated that ISO 100, F/18, 2 hrs 10 minutes would yield a properly exposed photo.
The skies were clear when the moon rose over Half Dome. Unfortunately the clouds blew in and led to a less-than-smooth gradient as the moon exited eclipse. The final image was about a stop underexposed--this was likely caused by the clouds. So my prediction was right. Maybe another time I'll finally catch a photo of a completely clear lunar eclipse transitioning between red and white...
Lunar Eclipse Moon Trail
For a bunch of years, I've wanted to do a long exposure showing the transition in color and brightness of the moon during a lunar eclipse. I tried this in 2015 on Mauna Kea, but was foiled by clouds. Also, stacking a bunch of shorter exposures led to odd artifacts in the image, so I decided to do a single long exposure.
To achieve the goal of capturing an entire eclipse in a single exposure, I needed to figure out the proper camera settings. This was especially tricky because the 2022 eclipse began during blue hour, so there was significant light at the beginning (due to twilight) and end (due to the full moon). I spent a lot of time digging through my Yosemite timlepase videos and calculated that ISO 100, F/18, 2 hrs 10 minutes would yield a properly exposed photo.
The skies were clear when the moon rose over Half Dome. Unfortunately the clouds blew in and led to a less-than-smooth gradient as the moon exited eclipse. The final image was about a stop underexposed--this was likely caused by the clouds. So my prediction was right. Maybe another time I'll finally catch a photo of a completely clear lunar eclipse transitioning between red and white...