February 20, 2008

Lunar eclipse

22008e 22008f

9:02PM----------9:13PM

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9:28PM----------9:40PM

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9:45PM----------9:57PM

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9:59PM----------10:44PM


Dwight and I braved the 20 degree temperature and watched the lunar eclipse tonight. I was beautiful outside. It snowed on and off all day with big, fluffy snowflakes. The ground was sparkling in the moonlight. My photography is very experimental, but I do have an idea of where to start. For these photos, I had to use the digital zoom, manually focus, manually adjust the shutter speed, use a tripod, and use the remote control.

According to this article, I think that may be Saturn in the 9:28PM photo. The stars were beautiful during the eclipse. I wish I knew how to spot constellations better.

After an hour, I got the "change your battery" shut down. I changed my battery, but the camera gave me the same message with the spare battery. I think it was too darn cold out there. I put the camera in my coat for a bit and was able to turn it back on, but not long enough to take a photo. I went inside, waited a bit, and tried again. That's when I took the 10:44PM photo. After that, I didn't want to chance damaging my camera and stopped for the night. So, I have plenty of pictures of the first half of the eclipse, but none of the second.

It was fun to watch, despite the cold. All of the photos above have been cropped. I didn't mess with the coloring. What you see is what the camera took. I think a few of them came out great!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice! I was looking forward to seeing the pictures!

Lynda said...

Great pictures...wish my camera would take pictures like that. I am saving my pennies for a Nikon D40 that comes with lenses so I can get better pictures.

Anonymous said...

Those photos are beautiful! I wish I hadn't missed the eclipse. :-(

Susan Pandorf said...

Very cool! I slept right through it.

Thanks for letting us sleepyheads in on the magic...

Blessings!