Partial Lunar Eclipse Photos

Well, it cleared up nicely here and I managed to get up about 4am to grab a few photos.  Of course, being at 4am, I wasn’t at my most coherent and looking back at what I got, I could have played with some settings more and probably gotten better results.  Still, they aren’t a disaster so here goes.

My first shot was overexposed.  Being 4am, I instantly started reducing exposure times and got no more good shots like this.  In hindsight, I like this shot since you can see the reddened eclipsed side of the Moon even though the lit side is overexposed.  I should have experimented more with this type of shot.  It was 4am…that’s my story and I sticking to it.

This shot exposes the lit side of the Moon a little bit better.  Look closely and you can see some craters, rays and maria.

And I wrapped up the night trying to get an interesting tree in the foreground.  I need to invest in a flash with a little more kick to really make this work better (could have done longer exposure or bumped up the ISO but wasn’t thinking clearly because, well, you know).

A good dry run for the big total lunar eclipse later this year!