2014 Lunar Eclipse From the Pacific Coast

This monday I had a chance to take a few shots of the moon as we caused an eclipse. You can see a bit of the “blood moon” effect as well. The shooting conditions were OK, high altitude stratus obscured the view, but it was viewable! My photography setup was on a small telescope and the camera’s shutter slap + weight + lunar movement caused some blur.

Note the artifact on the upper right – this is due to poor alignment of the camera and achromatic aberration of the scope.

Nikon D80 on ETX Telescope
Nikon D80 on ETX Telescope

 

The beginning of the eclipse cut off a portion of the moon but didn’t change the color.

Nikon D80 on ETX scope
Nikon D80 on ETX scope

 

Here I used an iPhone 5S placed over the scope’s ocular:

IMG_3896

 

DSC_2319

Once the eclipse took effect over roughly 2/3 of the moon the blood moon effect began to show. It was hard to capture, as a dim red glow.

DSC_2361 DSC_2358

Some longer explosures caused blur, but captured the blood effect:

IMG_3925 DSC_2391

 

Believe it or not, the larger shot was using the iPhone 5S on the scope. I learned a few things, chiefly that I need a better coupling system for my telescope if I expect to use this for any quality work, but it was a fun experience and a weird, eerie thing to watch!

 


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