My experience with the Partial Lunar Eclipse of September was very good. It was my first time imaging a lunar eclipse, so I knew I was gonna encounter challenges with balancing exposure and ISO. But I think it all came out beautiful in the end. I saw the Total Lunar Eclipse in 2018 and I am impatient to see and photograph another one. But the next good one is in 2029 for me. So for now, this partial eclipse will do.
From my viewpoint, I could have seen the entire eclipse. But it was on a weekday, so I got up and started imaging only 20 minutes before the peak. I didn't have time to let the 90mm mak cool down, so I started right away.
I took close to 2000 photos in total, in bursts of 30 secons and with a separation of 1-2 minutes. And some with a higher exposure and ISO to see the shadow. The stacking was difficult, only AstroSurface V3 gave me good results. I chose to divide the 2000 images into three blocks of 600 images, in order of time. And I stacked the best 100 of each 600 block. The result is this:
The shadow may be warped cause of the stacking combining images taken at different times. But I think it's amazing.
With those three stacks, I made a little animation in WinJupos showing the shadow of Earth moving along the nothern hemisphere of the Moon.
I had to turn it b&w cause the color of the iluminated stack created some weird banding. But it still looks cool!
So that was my experience with the eclipse. It felt like the end of a chapter in my first year of astrophotography cause now I'm gonna be more busy until Christmas, so I won't be able to go out that often. But the time will come again!
