The Lunar Eclipse of January 20-21, 2019

Ideally, the best location to photograph the moon would be when it is somewhat close to the horizon.  Since the lunar eclipse is occurring around midnight, the moon was high in the sky making it impossible to include a landscape.  However, this doesn’t prevent me from photographing it.  It just means the only subject in the photograph will be the moon itself, and that’s alright by me.

The beginning of the eclipse at 10:20 PM

It was a clear and cold night here in north-central Florida.  We had a cold front move through the area and the temperature is supposed to be down to freezing, but that didn’t keep me from going out and trying to shoot the moon. I drove out to my property and set up to photograph the moon.

Lunar Eclipse taken at 10:40 PM

Some of the problems I ran into was the fact that the moon was so high in the sky.  My camera was mounted on the tripod and it was facing nearly vertical upward, because of this position my 100-400mm zoom lens wanted to creep downward (or zoom out) due to gravity.  To remedy this problem, I had with me some Gaff tape that I wrapped around my zoom to hold it in place.  This Gaff tape has helped me more than once, and now I won’t go anywhere without it!!!

Lunar Eclipse taken at 11:05 PM

I had to continually reposition the tripod and relocate the moon in the viewfinder as the moon was moving through the sky.  At one point I had to extend the legs of the tripod just so I can get underneath to see through the camera.  It was a good thing I had a tall tripod!

Lunar Eclipse taken at 11:27 PM

I also had trouble maintaining sharpness.  I began photographing the moon at about 1/60sec at f/11, ISO 200 and was getting crystal sharp images but as the light from the moon began to fade and become darker, a longer exposure and a wider aperture were needed.  When the shutter speed exceeded 2 seconds, the image sharpness started to suffer.  So many of the images that I have of the total eclipse are slightly soft.

Near total eclipse taken at 11:47 PM

Fortunately, even though it was a cold night the lens never fogged.  I kept checking it as I had anticipated it since it was a chilly night.  I have heard other photographers struggling with lens fog on this night and that could be because they were located close to a body of water.

Near total eclipse taken at 11:51 PM

By the time I had taken my last shot of the moon, I was feeling very sick due to an interaction with some medication that I had taken.  I wanted to stay and shoot on after the total eclipse, but I just couldn’t do it.

Total Eclipse taken at 12:12 AM

This is my very first time shooting an eclipse.  I wish I had a much longer lens than what I had, and it would have been nice to have a telescope with a camera mount.  Maybe I can have these things before the next total eclipse 2 years from now.  I have learned a lot from experimenting with this one though.  I have a better idea where to set exposures when the eclipse is near total and I learned to secure that zoom lens so it doesn’t shift the next time I shoot vertical.  Lessons learned!  I can’t wait until the next opportunity!!!