The Abele's Web Site - Lunar Eclipse

The Abele's

Total Lunar Eclipse(s) Page

On 08 November 2003 there was one of those events which doesn't happen very often, and this one was of stellar magnitude.
A total lunar eclipse took place starting at 6:32 pm and lasting until just after 10:00 pm.

While the Earth passed between the Sun and Moon, casting a shadow, Don braved the 40 degree weather outside and took photos of the various stages. When all was said and done, he used Photoshop to compile a single image. None of the photos were retouched. What you see above is what Don took with our Sony CD-1000 digital camera with the lens set to an optical zoom of 10x, using an exposure of F11.0, and a shutter speed of 1/15 sec. The crescents just before and after totality over exposed, he's not sure why.

Oh, totality, that is, when the shadow completely covered the moon (or really close to completely) was amazing. Contrary to what we thought would happen, the Moon did not go black - instead it turned a deep rust red. Why? We wondered the same thing...and thanks to the amazing internet and NASA, we discovered the reason. Even though the Earth is blocking the Sun from the Moon, light hitting our atmosphere allows the Earth to "glow" with light...that light transfers to the other side and projects onto the Moon. Since the light has to pass through our atmosphere, the blues and greens are filtered out (yes, that's why the sky is blue) and only allows the reds, oranges, and yellows to pass - creating the Blood Moon. See, now you too can be an astrophysicist!!! If you are truly interested in astronomy, We've included a couple of good links on our links pages - check 'em out.

It's funny that in 2003 we wrote that a total lunar eclipse doesn't happen very often, and that is true.
But on 20 & 21 February 2008 it happened again.

This one lasted from 8:43 pm until 12:09 pm and was photographed from our back deck in Blackstone, Massachusetts. This time the temperature was well below freezing (actually it was in the single digits). Don had to keep the camera out there the whole time and when it was all over he took the camera to the garage to leave it out there to slowly warm back up. Don wasn't able to actually bring the camera in until the next day. He was really worried about condensation inside the camera. This series of photos was shot with our new Canon EOS 40D and a Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 image stabilized USM lens with a Canon doubler (bringing the focal length to 400mm). The whole outfit was mounted on a stabilized tripod. The photos were taken at a shutter speed of 1/125 and an aperture of f5.6 (the lowest we can get with the doubler is f4.0, but it was too bright). Film speed was set to ISO-100. The only post-production editing was some color correction in the histograms and cropping them into the collage using Photoshop. You can definitely see a significant difference in the quality of the photos from the original series Don took in 2003. Big difference in cameras though.

Don was also able to capture a photo of Saturn at the same time. Online resources told him it would be at it's brightest and exactly where to find it (next to Venus, the brightest star in the area). This photo was taken at 1/60 shutter speed, f5.6 aperture, ISO-100 film speed, and 400mm focal length. It's amazing that you can even see the rings!!! Remember, this was shot with just a camera lens not a telescope. A 400mm lens equates to about 8x magnification, the same from an average set of binoculars. This photo was edited though...Don increased magnification using Photoshop until the rings were visible. In the original photo, it appeared only as a dot. Overall magnification was increased 400% (32x total magnification). He did not edit anything else though. Don read that 25x is the minimum you need to see the rings and 300x is the best (only available with a telescope).