Lunar Eclipse Tonight

I photographed some of the Lunar Eclipse tonight and I was not as succesful as I thought I would be... It was FREEZING out and it was VERY hard to get the moon in focus because it was moving too darn fast for the slow shutter speeds. It was hard to do anything when the wind chill made it feel like 19 degrees and I couldn't feel my fingers!

I managed to get a few cool photos but nothing showing all of the phases of the moon as I've seen from others (particularly my friend Colin in Australia in August shown on his BLOG HERE).

Here are some photos of the basic photos I took tonight of the eclipse:









A long exposure of the eclipse:



FOR REFERENCE:

Website that discusses "How to capture the Lunar eclipse"


Other night shots of mine can be seen in this gallery: http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/2753068_7vAKB/1/257041611_kB2QJ

"When You Get Caught Between the Moon and New Jersey"

Okay...I know...I know...the title of this blog post is a cheesy reference to a Christopher Cross song but I just had to do it (and of course tailor it to a New Jersey Girl).

I wasn't able to take the full moon yesterday because it was completley overcast...which was upsetting since it was amazing the night before the full moon and I didn't photograph that either. So I took it tonight (the day after the full moon). It still looked full to me!

Rather than the photo looking like all of my other moon shots I experimented with different shutter speeds to see how the moon might look best.

I used my Nikon 70-300 VR lens, put the camera on the tripod, used the manual setting, and manual focus. I also used my wireless remote shutter release to avoid camera shake.

Photo 1 is 1/200 @ f 5.6
Photo 2 is 1/320 @ f 5.6
Photo 3 is 1/400 @ f 5.6
Photo 4 is 1/500 @ f 5.6
Photo 5 is 1/800 @ f 5.6

FULL MOON

I took the full moon tonight (well last night to be exact because it's after midnight now).

Since I got the new tripod I was finally able to photograph the moon and all it's glory - with extreme clarity compared to previous handheld shots. I used the remote control which helped avoid camera shake and I'm so pleased with the results.

Thank goodness for the new tripod!

Image was taken around 9:45pm. (Click photo to see a larger image).


To view more of my night photography click HERE.