Meet Me On The Equinox: Lunar Eclipse
SFcam: 2010: Part Thirty Nine
(December 20, 2010)
Equinox: the hour in which the sun crosses the equator and the time of day and night are equal.
I've decided to use the title from the song by Death Cab For Cutie, "Meet Me On The Equinox", which has absolutely nothing to do with space, as part of a segment of photographs I may take of the open sky. I can tell you now that since 2010, I have never been around for a celestial event, but I still have a few good forty years on me at the least, so it's not out of the question that I might get that chance again.
On December 20th, 2010, I was lucky enough to capture a Lunar Eclipse in full cycle. I'm no expert in astronomy, but I know for certain that this particular event is a bit more rare than any regular eclipse. Instead of the moon passing directly between the sun and Earth, it becomes positioned in a way that makes it turn dark red. The transformation itself looks as if the moon is reforming itself into the planet of Mars. The oddity of it is that the entire event takes place when the sun is directly opposite of the moon.
This diagram may work a little better than my explanation. Somehow, the light of the sun is able to pass around the very edge of Earth and hit the moon. I'm not sure why this would create a "Mars" color, but I won't bother arguing with scientific logic. My family and I watched the event for several hours, covered in warm blankets and hot drinks. I had planted my camera on a tripod and set it to take a minute-long photograph. If you own a smaller model, you may notice how incredibly hard it is to photograph something as clear as the moon. This is because of the exposure of light in the camera. In order to absorb enough light to view stars, you need to leave your lens on a stable mount and set it so that its photographs take a minute to process. Stars tend to be very dim so this is the bare minimum of requirements. This allows your camera to capture more light than usual. In daylight, the over-exposure may leave you with a white screen, but at night, it works like a charm.
(December 20, 2010)
Equinox: the hour in which the sun crosses the equator and the time of day and night are equal.
I've decided to use the title from the song by Death Cab For Cutie, "Meet Me On The Equinox", which has absolutely nothing to do with space, as part of a segment of photographs I may take of the open sky. I can tell you now that since 2010, I have never been around for a celestial event, but I still have a few good forty years on me at the least, so it's not out of the question that I might get that chance again.
On December 20th, 2010, I was lucky enough to capture a Lunar Eclipse in full cycle. I'm no expert in astronomy, but I know for certain that this particular event is a bit more rare than any regular eclipse. Instead of the moon passing directly between the sun and Earth, it becomes positioned in a way that makes it turn dark red. The transformation itself looks as if the moon is reforming itself into the planet of Mars. The oddity of it is that the entire event takes place when the sun is directly opposite of the moon.
This diagram may work a little better than my explanation. Somehow, the light of the sun is able to pass around the very edge of Earth and hit the moon. I'm not sure why this would create a "Mars" color, but I won't bother arguing with scientific logic. My family and I watched the event for several hours, covered in warm blankets and hot drinks. I had planted my camera on a tripod and set it to take a minute-long photograph. If you own a smaller model, you may notice how incredibly hard it is to photograph something as clear as the moon. This is because of the exposure of light in the camera. In order to absorb enough light to view stars, you need to leave your lens on a stable mount and set it so that its photographs take a minute to process. Stars tend to be very dim so this is the bare minimum of requirements. This allows your camera to capture more light than usual. In daylight, the over-exposure may leave you with a white screen, but at night, it works like a charm.
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