Last night was the first of four full moon eclipses that will occur in 2014 and 2015. They will take place on April 14, 2014, October 8, 2014, April 4, 2015 and September 28, 2015.
I wasn't in the mood to go track and photograph the eclipse. I thought I'd catch a few glimpses from the house and call it good. I've always been intrigued by celestial events, but I've never done much beyond enjoying them for a few minutes and then moving on. But, as a beautiful full moon emerged from behind the mountains last night I got hooked.
At my husbands prompting, I faced my fear of heights and climbed out of my son's window and onthe the roof, then climbed up to the top. Our house sits at the top of a hill with a view of mountains on three sides and the Knik Arm of the Gulf of Alaska in the fourth side- that is, as long as you're above the trees. I took my camera and tripod up on the roof and got some shots of a giant peachy colored moon rising and slowly moving through thin strips of clouds towards Pioneer Peak. Eventually the moon moved enough that the tall trees were obscuring my view, and I had to make my way down the roof and back in the window (going up was a lot easier!).
I hemmed and hawed for at least a half hour before I decided I would go out with my camera and search for a few good shots of the pending eclipse. I thought I knew a good view point and headed over there, but as I got closer I realized it was too low and close to the mountians, and that the moon would be obsured for much of the eclipse. I stopped at a nearby parking lot and took a few shots of the moon low in the sky, just about to disappear behind the mountain, and then I turned around and headed half-way back home to an are where I had seen a lot of people gathering to watch the eclipse.
I turned at the field where people were hanging out, but decided to continue down the road to get away from all the lights (they were in a grassy patch overlooking the hospital and highway and I didn't want that as my foreground). I didn't have to go more than half a mile to find a quiet and dark road witha great view and only a couple cars that didn't even stay very long.
My goal was not to track the moon through the eclipse, and it was too late to start that anyway since the eclipse was approaching 1/4. I wanted a unique landscape highlighting the moon and mountains. Living in Alaska gave me a great advantage to make this shot a reality. First, the eclipse took place starting at about 9:30 pm, and was at full around 11 pm-not too late. Second, it's the middle of April and we have long days already. Dusk/twilight was around 10 pm and fades very slowly. I still had light in the sky to illuminate the mountains, I wasn't just depending on light from the moon, which would be fading as the eclipse progressed. I was able to get details on the mountains and trees without having a exposure time that was so long the moon and stars would blur. By boosting the ISO just a bit, I could have relatively short exposures in the range of one to ten seconds, and get the effect I wanted.
I played a littlewith the aperture, but eventually settled on fairly open aperatures between f4 and f8 to keep the exposure times short. I had to put the lens on manual exposure to stop autofocus from searching for a focus point. I also used the LiveView feature and zoomed in on the LCD to maximize the focus on the mountains and moon. My tripod was crucial to the shot, providing a stable platform that I could easily adjust as the moon moved theough the sky.
All said, I had a lot of fun shooting the eclipse and I captured some unique shots that I will have fun processing. I'm glad I took the time to go out and play. I just wish I'd remembered to put gloves in my jacket pocket, because my hands were getting cold as the temperature dipped back down into the 30's.
