Thursday, February 21, 2008

Eclipsed

It's not that easy to take a photo of the moon. When it's near the horizon, and appears to be much larger than usual, the camera proves that's definitely an optical illusion. However, to see any detail requires serious telephoto, even with a 1.6x DSLR crop factor.


Regular Moon



One good rule of thumb is to set your camera aperture to f/11, and the exposure to 1/ISO (e.g. 1/100 s for ISO 100). This seems to work well, but only for a full moon.


Umbra



While a lunar eclipse is the poor country cousin of the solar, at least you don't need special glasses, or to travel to Mongolia to see it.


Totality



It's a bit of a struggle to get the exposure (and even focus) just right, in order to capture fine detail, as well as the proper reddish colour. Probably need some better equipment. With the next lunar eclipse not due for another 32 months, I have time to save up...


Normality

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