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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

John sent me his series of images from the Lunar Eclipse of October 2004...

I have assembled them in a montage...Hope I got them in proper sequence!...

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John, Perhaps you could comment on the sequence details. You provided a blurb on the technique and equipment, but I think It would be better described here by you.

Thanks for the submission...they look quite cool.

[jglover]

Chicago said:

John, Perhaps you could comment on the sequence details. You provided a blurb on the technique and equipment, but I think It would be better described here by you.

Thanks Joe, for posting these for me. The sequencing looks good!

These were shot through the ED80, prime focus, using a Pentax *ist-D DSLR. The camera was directly coupled to the ED80 using a t-mouring. The exposures were determined by the camera's spot metering system then I bracketed a couple of stops each way. As long as the moon was full or nearly fully, the camera metering was pretty good. However as the eclipse progressed, it took a bit of fooling aroudn and adjusting the exposure manually to get a nice shot.....but that is the beauty of the DSLR, the instant feed back you get on your image. So making the exposure adjustments was much easier.

Basically what we have in the sequence is the full moon, just prior to eclipse, the next one is a few minutes after first umbral contact, then we're about halfway through in the next one. The bottom rows of shots were exposed for the eclipsed portion of the moon, so the uneclisped part is way over exposed. Still, there was good detail shown in the shadow portions.

The final image sort of shows a "diamond ring" effect, similiar to what is seen in a solar eclipse, due to the overexposed of the uneclipsed limb. You can also clearly see the differences in the umbral and penumbral shadows on the lunar surface. The lower left portion of the limb is in the much darker umbral shadows.

All in all, the pictures turned out quite well for my first really serious attempt at prime focus photography.