Lunar Eclipse  (February 20, 2008)

Fig. 1.  The Moon at the start of the eclipse has gradations of color and brightness because it is just inside the edge of Earth's shadow.  This photo was taken on 2008 February 20 at 22:01 EST (local time) outside our front door in Cockeysville, Maryland. Fig. 2.  Image sequence (1.2 Mb) of the lunar eclipse, beginning just before totality.  The Moon's apparent rotation is actually due to Earth's rotation.  A motorized telescope mount would compensate for this rotation, but we did not have enough time to set it up.  Playing this movie requires web browser support of HTML5 video.

Sudden Opportunity The sky was completely overcast at the beginning of the night of 2008 February 20.  But some time after 9 o'clock, the sky cleared completely.  This change took us by surprise, and we rushed out of the house with binoculars and camera equipment.  We did not have time to get out our usual time-lapse setup, so we had to settle for a series of still photographs (Figs. 1 and 2).    More information about lunar eclipses can be found on our page for the lunar eclipse of October 2004 and on NASA's eclipse page.  Our quick equipment setup is outlined below.  Because the camera was mounted on a fixed tripod instead tracking on a telescope mount, the Moon appears to rotate during the eclipse.  Actually, this apparent rotation is a consequence of Earth's rotation. GPS location:  N 39 deg 28.277', W 76 deg 35.672', altitude 440 ft Camera:  Canon Digital Rebel SLR (6-megapixel resolution, 1.6X magnification compared to standard 35 mm format) with Sigma 80-200 mm telephoto zoom lens and 2X teleconverter (lens zoomed out to maximum) Exposure setting:  ISO 400, ranged from 1 second at f/5.6 during the middle of the eclipse to 1/1000 second at the end Camera support:  Camera mounted on Bogen 3205 tripod legs with Bogen 3275 geared tripod head, tracked manually Image processing:  Assembled selected frames into a movie, adjusted position, and added titles using Apple Final Cut Pro software ( back to home page)

 back to home page