February 21, 2008

Total Lunar Eclipse Of The Heart

Total lunar eclipse taken in the Twin Cities on February 20, 2008 [Title Note: Someone at my work was adding words to the old 80's hit by Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse Of the Heart", if you could have only heard them sing it]

Here is my photo attempt of the lunar eclipse that has come and gone. I read for best results on taking lunar eclipse photos it's best to have a clear sky [duh], away from lights [I was not], have a 3X lens for your camera [I did not have]. Well, I stood about five feet outside my front door, shot across a street light and used only the zoom on my camera. My results are okay, but not fantastic.

Did I mention the temperature was -3 F at the time of photo taking, I was wearing my sweatshirt, jeans and my slippers! The one thing in my favor was the lack of wind, there wasn't any, thus I got my shots taken in under five minutes of being in the cool temperatures. Honestly, with the lack of wind, it wasn't that bad for the few minutes I was outside. Throw in some wind, I would have taken one shot and called it a night, it took about a dozen in all.

The bottom left corner dot is the planet Saturn. The top, almost directly above the moon is Regulus, the brightest star in the Leo constellation. It is also about 77.5 light years from our solar system.

Total lunar eclipse taken in the Twin Cities on February 20, 2008 Total lunar eclipse taken in the Twin Cities on February 20, 2008
More Daily Photo Lunar Eclipse Photos: Detroit, Michigan | Port Elizabeth, South Africa | Port Angeles, Washington | Weston, Florida | Chicago, Illinois | Minneapolis, Minnesota | River Falls, Wisconsin | Forks, Washington | Larchmont, New York | Washington DC | Regina, Canada | San Diego, California | Stayton, Oregon | Maple Ridge, Canada

7 comments:

  1. So you saw it, Slinger ! Congratulations on your photos!
    It was cloudy in the south of France so we saw nothing. The next eclipse will be in 2015, a long time to wait ;-(

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  2. very cool! i was driving home from downtown minneapolis last night around 8:50 p.m. and watched the eclipse the whole way.

    it was dramatic. and your photos are great.

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  3. wow! your photos are much better than ours. great job! thanks for linking to our site.

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  4. We had cloud here so no chance to see. I've found some videos though which I've posted on my blog.

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  5. They were wrong, you don't need the equipments that much, see how clear a shot you got! Thanks for sharing this...I thought it was actually Photoscoping but you used only your bare camera? Great catch!

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  6. Excellent pics, congrats! I like the adition of the star Regulus and Saturn. Darn cold that night.

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  7. Sadly I couldn't see the eclipse as our skies were overcast that night. :(

    Thanks for braving the weather and taking some photos to show us :)

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