image by Howard Eskildsen, Ocala, Florida
This lunar eclipse poster arose unexpectedly from photos taken for other reasons. I had planned to photograph the complete eclipse, but also wanted to compare the Meade 6″ refractor with an 8″ reflector since I intended to purchase one of the telescopes. The ingress and three of the totality images were taken with the refractor and the rest were taken with the reflector. Images on the poster were taken at approximately five-minute intervals with a Nikon Coolpix 4300 attached to a MaxView 40 eyepiece. Each image was the best of three that were taken. I varied the exposure to reveal the bright side and then the darker side of the eclipsed moon, and later tried to combine the light and dark side photos into a single image using Photoshop Elements 2. The results were not satisfactory, so instead, I assembled them, one over the other, as seen on the poster. Copies of the poster have been sent to a local science center, family, friends, and to a teacher, who said that her kids were “flipping over it”. Many hours went into this poster and it was gratifying to hear that it was appreciated. This was a first for me, but more have followed and even more are in planning stages. Special thanks to the late Jose Olivarez who shared his telescopes and wisdom, and nurtured my interest in astrophotography.
Howard Eskildsen
p.s. I bought the refractor
Technical Details:
October 28, 2004. The full size poster is available at the LPOD Photo Gallery, which now includes 1098 images! CAW: LPOD features 364 excellent images each year - I hope more contributors create posters and image collections to give to local educational groups!
Related Links:
Oct 28, 2004 eclipse
Yesterday's LPOD: Black and Wispy
Tomorrow's LPOD: A, B, Cs of Lunar Topography
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