Blood Moon

I have loved amateur astronomy since I was a kid and received an astronomy book for my 8th birthday. I can recall dragging my parents outside all night to watch lunar eclipses or meteor showers. I still love star gazing and even taking a stab at photographing the sky.

Astrophotography is quite difficult and requires specific equipment. There isn’t much that you can photograph with what I have – a 250mm lens and a tripod. The moon can be easily photographed with this size lens, but not much else can. Earlier this year I did successfully photograph the partial solar eclipse, so I thought this would be another opportunity to get some good astrophotography in.

Some of the pictures came out great, I find the ones of totality just OK. But overall it’s a good set so I thought would share a series.

The above picture is of totality, taken at 4:19 AM CET. All pictures were taken using my Canon 600D and EF-s 55-250 lens at 250mm and ISO 100 unless otherwise stated. The totality picture was f/7.1, 1.3 sec.

Here are some others from the event:

The full moon was very easy to shoot, and in fact I didn’t even use a tripod for this one! Taken September 27, 2015 at 10:02 PM CET; f/13.0, 1/320sec

I went to bed and woke up just after 3 to watch the event. This picture was my first glimpse of the eclipse at 3:34 AM CET; f/13, 1/125 sec

Three quarters coverage at 3:51 AM CET; f/9, 1/40 sec

Totality taken zoomed out a bit at 5:03 AM CET. This was much harder to shoot and I kept getting blurry shots, even with a tripod and the mirror release triggered before taking the picture. 55mm, ISO 200, f/9, 10 sec.

Last moments of totality, 5:22 AM CET; f/9, 2.5 sec, ISO 400

And finally one last shot, the moon was disappearing behind a house and I was ready to catch an hour of sleep before having to get up for work. 5:55 AM CET; f/10.0, 1/50

See you for the next eclipses: Total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017 in the USA and total lunar eclipse in Germany July 27, 2018