High cloud speeding across the sky made looking at the blood moon a wonderful experience but impossible to do justice to :) Heavy cloud cleared just as the moon started to come out of the eclipse.
At the point of eclipse, the Moon had a unique footprint of stars around it. I used my star charts to put together a snap shot of those stars, and found Uranus was sitting there.
Tonight I ran into two unexpected problems.
a. when the moon goes into full eclipse, it gets very dark. At f6 it became almost impossible to focus. I was sort of aware this would happen - and counted on being able to focus on the moon before it went dark. Didnt get that chance - the moon was behind clouds until the last moment. I dont normally use the Sigma @500 for star pics - too dark - but it works well for the moon (and better with a doubler). Next chance I get I will mark astro-focus (sharp moon features/stars) on the lens for focussing.
b. The moon (even in eclipse) creates a glow around its edges and into the surrounding star field. I am interested in getting the milky way + eclipsed moon in the same frame (this time they were in the opposite quadrants). Merging shots optimized for moon features with one optimized for stellar detail will be a challenge because of the glow issue. I dont know what the solution is for that. Maybe some form of graduated fade.
Peter Quinton
Palerang
October 2014
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