Lunar Eclipse


For high resolution, click here.

Lunar Eclipse: This is the eclipsed moon right after totality on the morning of April 15. Instead of being "blood" red, it was more of a brownish-orange hue. The color is from scattered sunlight passing through the Earth's atmosphere. If you were standing on the moon, you would likely see a ring of sunset around the Earth.

Date: April 2014
Equipment: Astro-Physics 155mm f7 Starfire EDF
A-P 1200 Mount
A-P Photo-Visual Telecompressor
Canon 50D
Exposure: 4 seconds, ISO 100, RAW.
Processing Notes: The background was stretched in order to see the stars. Curves were applied in Photoshop to enhance the contrast. The image was cropped slightly to center the moon.

Additional Comments: The images this evening were first (camera) light for me with this telescope. This exposure was one shot of a series for a potential time lapse of the eclipse. Unfortunately, from where the telescope was set up, the end of the eclipse was obstructed by a tree. I assembled the set of images into a time lapse. The tracking could have been better (mostly due to inadequate polar alignment), so when I get more time I might go back and align all the images to make a smoother video.
A direct link to the youtube video is here:
http://youtu.be/fci9CzAym_0
or just click on the embedded version.

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