total lunar eclipse on august 28, 2007 Instead of going to sleep, I stayed up and photographed tonight's total lunar eclipse (here's a cool animation of the eclipse as seen from Earth). The photos above were taken from the 4th story rooftop of my building in downtown Oakland, California. The first frame was taken at around 02:30 PDT and the last frame at 03:30 PDT, just before the middle of the moon's full coverage.

All photos were taken with a Canon 1Ds Mk II and Canon 600mm f4L IS lens (thanks, Al!). I experimented with using a 2x tele-converter as well, but the darkest point of the eclipse required more than 1 sec @ f8, ISO 1600 for a proper exposure. Without the converter, I was able to shoot at 1/2 sec @ f4. Because my good ball head is currently being fixed, I didn't have a good way to secure the camera and lens combo, which together weigh around 15 lbs. I had to use a video head, which was a huge hassle. Oh well.

UPDATE: I made the three-moon image into a desktop background, which you can download here: [1440x900] [1024x768]

2007 total lunar eclipse from Oakland, California

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