Scope Diagram Astrocamera.Net - Astrophotography by Dave Kodama  

Total Lunar Eclipse
(20 Feb 2008)


 

Bad Luck / Good Luck!

Rain thwarted plans to shoot this lunar eclipse from my observatory site.  Rain and heavy cloud cover the day before and all day leading up to the eclipse made it look very unlikely that I'd see this eclipse at all.  But in the evening an unexpected hole in the clouds just around the time of totality opened up, so I quickly went home and hastily set up my digital camera and Borg scope for a few shots from in front of my home.  
 
Clouds moved back in after totality ended, but not before the partial phases of the eclipse were completely over as you can see by the scattering visible in last shot of this set (scroll right to see all images).  
 
Date/Time:    20 Feb. 2008
Location: Cerritos, California
Scope/Lens: Borg 76ED @ f/6.6 (500mm)
Camera: Nikon D70s
Mount: [stationary tripod]
Guider: [none]
Media: DSLR (ISO 400)
Exposure: 1/2 sec. each