I watched the evening light change as the almost full moon rose over Byng Inlet. Although I wanted to take some “calibration photos” in preparation for the Sept 26 apparition I ended up chatting with old friends most of the time, whilst looking over their shoulders at the event. I did take a few pix.
Taken from the acid dock at 7:17 PM. Moon is in Belt of Venus.
From LiMac at 7:24 PM
Taken from the town dock at 7:48 PM
Taken at the town dock at 7:51 PM
If you want to see any of the above in detail, click on them. Download or use Fxif Data if you want the complete Exif.
Astronomer/Astrophotographer Andrew sent some good info a couple of days ago:
All the details:
<http://www.skyandtelescope.com/press-releases/get-ready-for-sunday-nights-total-eclipse-of-the-moon/>.
This will be the last lunar eclipse, partial or total, that we can see until Jan. 2018.
The Moon will also be the closest Full Moon of the year, which the media call “supermoon”. The proper term is perigee Full Moon or proxigee Full Moon.
There is nothing so “super” about this Moon. Being the closest Full Moon, its disk is 14% larger and 30% brighter than a typical Full Moon. Both effects are not noticeable to the eyes until one places an image of a typical Full Moon next to an image of the “supermoon” taken with the same camera and lens settings.
More info about “supermoon”, <http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-supermoon>.
What is unusual about this eclipse is that it is only the 6th “supermoon” total eclipse since 1900. See the NASA video at <https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11981>.
Another interesting fact is that the Full Moon Sunday evening occurs on the 8th month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Chinese communities worldwide will celebrate it in the Mid-Autumn Festival, see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival>.
Here is some additional technical stuff for photographers:
“Mr. Eclipse”, Fred Espenak, has an excellent article on how to photograph lunar eclipses here:
http://www.mreclipse.com/LEphoto/LEphoto.html
Tomorrow I’ll set the camera to spot metering, 5 brackets at medium burst, with 2/3 stop separation, to shoot RAW ETTR using the LV histogram and Zebra striping (set at 105%) to try to get optimal raw files. Then I’ll use Lightroom 5.6 to drop highlights and raise shadows, and, if necessary, Photomatix Pro to increase Dynamic Range.
Moonrise at Britt is about 7:00 PM EDT. Totality is from about 10:11 PM to 11:23 PM.
Clear weather is forecast. Toronto’s afternoon hosting of the Tampa Bay Rays will be over.
I would encourage folks to try to capture the apparition. It is a lot of fun and a good challenge for a photographer. At least I find it to be a good challenge!
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