Last night the weather was perfect for observing the lunar eclipse, and we had a great location for viewing. Laura’s Chemistry Techniques class was having an end-of-term party at the Hanks-Veas estate north of Travelers Rest. The skies up there were certainly darker than our downtown location, so I loaded up telescopes, cameras, and binoculars and headed on up.
There was a good-sized gathering of students, with more faculty than I expected. I set up the scopes on Tim’s front deck and in his front yard, and we let the students view the eclipse. Many had never looked through a telescope, or had ever really paid attention to the night sky.
I used my Nikon D50 attached to the Celestron C90 for most of my shots. I also set up my Nikon S50 on a tripod and set it to interval mode so that it would take a picture every five minutes. I then combined the shots to create an animated GIF file.
We had to stay until Laura so light starting on the other side. It wasn’t a perfectly symmetrical eclipse, but it was still pretty darn close.
Fun stuff.
If you only had an explosion at the end of that animated gif, you would have your first foray into sci-fi video! I wish I’d had my dad’s binoculars here. I have some with small objectives, but he has a really nice set from back about 30 years ago. Still, with my 300 mm lens and my pocket binocs, it was an impressive show. How about the two stars near the moon that would ordinarily be blocked out by the luminosity of the normal full moon?
Great shot and gif, Tom. I didn’t feel like getting out and watching it, but I was confident you’d have it documented for me – and you (and the moon) cam through brilliantly.