Lunar Eclipse – September 2015
Lunar Eclipse as Seen From Minnesota – September 2015
It’s been almost a year since I’ve had time to post anything, but I’ll break internet silence with something quick and easy. A combination of a lunar eclipse in near-perfect weather and a break between home projects motivated me to dust off the telescope and haul it out to the backyard to use as a tracking platform for my DSLR camera and one of my wife’s telephoto lenses. I almost passed on the opportunity since there would always be better internet images available on the morning after (or even in real time), but what the heck…
It has been so many years since I have had the telescope set up in our backyard that the trees have grown to the point that the view of the celestial pole near Polaris – from the telescope’s position – is totally obscured. The eclipse was to start early in the evening and there wasn’t a lot of time to futz with tracking a star and making adjustments, so I used the SkEye app on my phone (placed flat against the wedge base) to set the telescope mount roughly to the correct position during the day. As it turns out, long exposures of stars did end up showing a small tracking error, but for the duration of the longest exposures of the moon during totality the tracking was remarkably good, requiring only minor adjustments to follow the slight orbital movement of the moon through the star field.
Canon Camera With Its Own Lens. I Never Even Looked Through the Telescope.
I gave up on any serious attempt at astrophotography long ago, at least using film. It is difficult to do well and requires a dedication that I never had. But I was happy that the investment of only a few minutes setup yielded some photos that are much better than my blurry tripod pictures taken during the last total eclipse.
Equipment used included: Meade LX50 telescope (use for tracking the camera), Canon 70D DSLR, Canon 400mm lens with 1.4x extender.
First Image Clear of the Trees
Waiting for Totality
Approximate Totality (Minnesota)
Starting to Brighten a Bit
I Swapped Lenses at Totality to Get This Wider View
Parting Shot