Lunar Eclipse
7/16/2000
Mount Abel, California
The photos cannot do justice to the experience of watching the moon drift into the earth's shadow as the sky moved out of the earth's shadow (yeah, normal people call that "dawn"). Unfortunately, the roll of film I used to cover the first 30 minutes of the eclipse was not securely inserted into the camera and not a single shot came out! So, here are photos from the last 25 minutes. All shots in the left-hand column were taken using a Nikon FM with a Nikon 500 mm F8 "cat" telephoto, on Kodak Gold ASA 100 film.
Click on the images to see them full sized!
5:25 AM PDT
A little fill in flash from a hand-held "bakachan" camera plus on top of the long hand-held exposure makes it look as if we're in a studio with a dark blue backdrop.
1/60 s exposure
5:29 AM PDT
1/60 s exposure
5:33 AM PDT
1/60 s exposure
5:37 AM
PDT
By this time the sky was so bright, I whipped my camera off the 500 mm lens and put on the 50 mm lens to get an overview. Notice the shadow of the mountains in the pink of the terminator.
1/60 s exposure
5:41
AM PDT
Justin & Lynn also got up & braved the cold to witness the spectacle!
1/30 s exposure (?)
5:45 AM PDT
Now you see it . . .
1/15 s exposure
5:49 AM PDT
Now you don't!
(Actually, there is a final sliver faintly visible in the photograph, but I haven't figured out how to scan it in so that my poor imaging software can bring it out of the muck!)
Visits
10/07/2001