Blood Moon from Colorado

[Tobman]

The total eclipse in Colorado, USA was at about 4:50 am. It started to get a bit foggy then, but I managed a good shot before it covered the moon. Hope you like it.

As you can see, it is a little out of focus. I had trouble with focus I believe because my tripod is not sturdy enough, even though there was no wind to speak of or any other disturbance. But any exposure beyond about 30 seconds was unusable because of camera shake.

[KimC]

Your photo didn't appear to load Toby. Was looking forward to seeing it.

[Tobman]

It's there now, I was having technical difficulties.

[KimC]

Very cool shot Toby!

[IzzieK]

Oooooh love this one...I wish I was awake. It was such a beautiful morning when I saw the eclipse starting...nevermind, I will make sure I am awake this coming April 15th...envious....

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, sometimes adding a bit of weight to the tripod helps.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice

[benm]

An interesting color. Thanks for posting.

Even if your tripod were massively stable and there was no camera shake you would get a blurry photo at 30 seconds exposure. The moon moves a lot faster than you would think possible.

[PhotoByTrace]

Nice work. However I was just going to reinforce what Ben said. I'm not sure what focal length you were shooting at, but you are going to want your exposure to get shorter the longer your focal length, and shorter again if shooting with a crop sensor camera. I'm actually not sure what the maths is for calculating the moon's movement, but I just used the star trails 500 rule of thumb to establish maximum exposure times when shooting the moon. So at 200mm on a full frame camera (500/200) I didn't want to exceed 2.5secs, so increased ISO to get the exposure I was chasing. If anyone knows the correct calculations please jump in.
Marcus McAdams video "To the Moon" demonstrates how much the moon's (/earth's) motion is visible when viewed at extra long focal lengths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8z2M4DvqWc

[Stagecoach]

I'm actually not sure what the maths is for calculating the moon's movement,

I'm not sure about the maths Trace but recall reading that the moon moves the distance of its diameter in two minutes when viewed from the earth.

[FootLoose]

I recently viewed a video on shooting the stars, moon, milky way etc, by Jennifer Wu. For the moon she recommended the 'Moony 11' rule ie the Sunny 16 applied to the moon. So, f/11 @ 1/125. But, as always, adjust for prevailing conditions.


PS her video is Kelby One,r anyone who subscribes and is interested.

[Tobman]

Thanks Y'All, it was a fun image to capture. In retrospect, the movement of the moon causing blur is rather obvious. According to The Photographer's Ephemeris the moon moves one diameter in about 2 mins, or a quarter diameter in 30 seconds; that's fast.