2008-02-20
It was a day of the sort of weather that we typically get when there's something interesting going to be happening in the sky: Cloud cover. About twenty minutes before mid-eclipse as I was driving home I glanced toward that part of the sky where the Moon would be and was surprised by seeing the clouds breaking up and the eclipsed Moon visible between them. A beautiful sight, to be sure, albeit unexpected.
I hadn't bothered preparing anything for this eclipse since clouds were forecast but, in hindsight, Mother Nature must have been teaching me to ignore such pretensions as the clouds broke up and the sky cleared for the duration. I normally would have taken photos through my telesecope but since I wasn't prepared I had to make do with my camera's zoom.
My Panasonic FZ-30 is a great camera for normally-lit subjects but it's not well-suited for photographing dark subjects because the sensor noise is too great, even with the speed locked to ISO 80. In addition to noise, today's photos were affected by a turbulent atmosphere, difficulty in focusing on a dim object through the turbulence, and the orbital motion of the Moon combined with the 420mm focal length and 1 or 2 second exposures needed. Because of these challenges the photos aren't great for science or good examples of the art of photogrpahy, but they do capture the event.
These first two images were taken at 19:06, a few minutes after the midpoint of the eclipse which was at 19:00 PST. The last two were taken at 21:03, a few minutes before the Moon was to pass out from the umbra of the Earth's shadow.