Mt. Abel
7/15/2000
Waiting for the Eclipse
We chose to observe the lunar eclipse from Mt. Abel for a number of reasons. It is away from city lights and over 8,000 feet, which makes for good seeing. It is the westernmost peak in the range, so we would have a good view of the moonset during the eclipse. It is a rather nice campsite, so we could arrive Saturday afternoon and hang out until the eclipse at dawn on Sunday. Lynn and Jim arrived earlier in the afternoon and set up camp. I had a bunch of stuff to do at home, then I had to go into work. I finally got everything rounded up that we needed for an overnight trip and we rolled out of the driveway at 5:30 PM Saturday afternoon. That got us to Mt. Abel around 7:30 PM, just in time to set up our tent and get out the cameras for the sunset. The bakachan was loaded with ASA 200 film, all other photos were taken with Kodak Gold, ASA 100.
Click on an image to get it full sized.
I wanted to do
another multiple exposure sunset,
similar to the one I'd done the week before. I set up my camera in the same location and
noticed that the high clouds would make it a different experience. Taking a one-hour set
of multiple exposures spaced four minutes apart isn't very interesting, so I used the
bakachan to grab some snapshots of Justin & Lynn entertaining themselves while Jim
went back to our campsite for his drum or camera or something. Justin sat on a rock and
read while Lynn sketched the marvelous pine tree you see in the photo to the left.
After setting up and
getting five or so shots, I accidently advanced the film. No problem, I tilted the camera
down and kept exposing the sun (1/1000, F32, ASA 100, four minutes apart) to get the photo
on the right. I used the bakachan to grab the photo on the left.
Once the sun
was down, we were ravenous & devoured a divine dinner of fresh broiled trout over
campfire coals. Here's Justin contemplating the fire (4 s at F1.4), and Justin reading by
moonlight. The full moon was bright, but I flashed him and then did a second exposure of
the moon with a 500 mm F8 lens at 1/30.
Around midnight, we
felt the need to play--we were all tired, but wanted to get some "fun" photos.
To the left is proof that Justin is bright! He's so bright I call him "sunny". I
decided to invoke my "Magic Powers" in a visible way . . .
Lynn developed an
intimate relationship with the moon while Jim traced glyphs in the forest.
If you thought one Elderbear
was tough to handle, can you imagine two?!?
This picture may not seem very
spectacular. It looks like a nice daylight picture of the forest. I took it at 2:00 AM
after everybody else had gone to bed. It's a 10 minute exposure at F1.4. Notice how there
is no color shift--this Kodak Gold 100 film resists reciprocity failure quite well. I'm
going to have to do some more experimenting to see how long the exposures need to be
before it shifts.
I had bought a travel alarm for this trip. I figured we'd fall asleep around midnight & get up around 4:00 AM. I even remember packing the alarm--but once we got ready for bed, I couldn't remember where I'd packed it! So, I stayed up until the eclipse. After the moonlight shot above, I took a bunch of other night time photos and then photographed the first 1/2 hour of the eclipse on the next roll. But, I didn't insert the film correctly and the entire roll was lost! 8o(
See the pictures I did get of the eclipse.
Visits
10/07/2001