Lunar Eclipse

Saturday night is a Lunar eclipse. from what the paper says, it

should be a total eclipse with a long duration of totality. So, all

you large format people, now is the time to REALLY practice your

skills. How to get a good landscape photo AND a shot of the

eclipsed moon in the same frame.*

Out here in the west, the eclipse will be in progress as the moon

rises at 5:06 PST. So that makes part of the framing job easier.

Plus, it is near sunset, so there should be plenty of light in the

foreground for more normal exposures. The bad news is they are

predicting rain early Saturday morning, and the clouds may not clear

off in time.

Searching Google for "Lunar Photography" shows there are quite a few

sites out there. The rule for the moon is still something

like "Sunny 16", but there are some many variations that it is nearly

incomprehensible. "Bracketing" figures into a lot of the exposure

instructions. And as I said before, having a well lit foreground

will make things even more interesting.

Happy shooting,

Bill

*Yes, I know you could cheat and double expose. But WE don't cheat,

do we...?

Actually, the Moon passes through the extreme southern edge of the Earth's shadow, making totality quite short (about 20 minutes). The southern edge of the Moon will be fairly bright, even at mid-totality.

Some good observing details here:

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/eclipses/article_1072_1.asp

<cite>The rule for the moon is still something like "Sunny 16", but there are some many variations that it is nearly incomprehensible. </cite>

<p>

That rule, of course, applies only to a moon that's being lit

by direct sunlight, like it almost always is. But when it's

eclipsed in the Earth's shadow, you'll probably want to give it

significantly more exposure. I don't know how much,

but I suspect it varies a bit depending on how deep

the eclipse is, the amount of light that's scattered

by the earth's atmosphere, and the effect you're going for.

<p>

BTW, one reason for the many incompreshensible variations

on the the sunny 16 rule for lunar photography is that

people can't agree on what tonal value the moon should

have in the final print. "Sunny 16" will give lots

of detail, but a fairly dark representation, so lots

of people prefer to open up a stop or two. I suspect

there's even less agreement on what's the "correct" zone

to place a fully eclipsed moon into. Experiment, bracket, and

enjoy.

<i>I know you could cheat and double expose. But WE don't

cheat, do we...? </i>

<p>I plan on "cheating" as much as I can by trying the multiple

exposure technique outlined at <a

href="http://www.mreclipse.com/LEphoto/LEphoto.html">Lunar

Eclipse Photography</a>. After all, why have only one eclipsed

moon in the frame when you can easily have a whole string of

them? ;-)

<p>A view camera seems the perfect tool for this method, with

the ease of making multiple exposures. I've done it enough

times unintentionally, so I'll look on the bright side and consider

those goof ups as practice for this event.

<center>

<img src="http://www.rbarkerphoto.com/misc/Space/LunarEc051503-comp-550bw.jpg">

<p><small>digital composite, May 15, 2003 total eclipse</small></p>

</center>

<p>Break out the long lenses, folks. The link that John B. provided has a handy table for estimating the size of the lunar image on the film. But, it takes a lens of about 2,000mm to almost fill the width of a 35mm frame with a full moon. So, judge your focal lengths accordingly. The above composite image, for example, was created from three images made with a 5" Celestron on a Nikon D1 digital. Considering the 1.5x effect of the D1's CCD, the effective focal length of the 5" Celestron was around 1800mm. An 8" Celestron (a bit over 2000mm) will fill the width of 35mm film with a full moon.</p>

Ralph,

Nice image. Can you help me understand the conversion from 5" x 1.5 to equal 1800mm?