Tasmin's Astronomy Blog: Total Lunar Eclipse April 14-15, 2014

Object:	Total Lunar Eclipse
Date:	Monday 14 April, 2014 11:50PM - 15 April, 2014 2:50AM / 15 Jamadi-At-Thani 1435 H.
Location:	Murrieta, California
Equipment:	Canon EOS Rebel XT with Tamron 55-200mm lens on a tripod with remote shutter. Samsung Galaxy S4 clock timer

Description:
These are my pictures of the Total Lunar Eclipse around midnight between April 14th and 15th, 2014, as observed from Murrieta, California. Southern California was nicely situated for observing this total lunar eclipse. I got my gear setup by 11:50, and the eclipse was already under way, and the moon had just started to enter the umbra (the dark part of the Earth's shadow).

I took many shots are five minute intervals, bracketing the exposure so I could later pick the best exposures. The shots were taken at 200mm, ISO-800, f/8 and the shutter speed varied from 1/1000s to 1s through the entire session. After totality, I used longer shutter speeds.

I made a time-lapse video out of the stills. The video shows the eclipse progressing up to totality. After that the video shows the exposure slowly increasing to make visible the dim reddish moon. The reddish color is due to the red part of the Sun's light getting refracted around the Earth's atmosphere, making it into the Earth's shadow, and falling onto the dark moon's surface.

The last part of the video shows a wider angle shot with the planet Mars making a guest appearance.

Images: