Last night there was a full lunar eclipse, where the Earth blocked the Sun’s rays of light from hitting the moon and I like many photographers around the world was awake trying to take photos of it. Many articles on the internet still give advice about how to take Lunar Eclipse photos with a film camera so here are some general tips for more modern digital cameras!

photo credit: Neerav Bhatt – Lunar Eclipse 10/11 December 2011 – Viewed from Sydney Australia (Canon 60D with 70-300mm L lens @ 480mm (35mm equiv)

photo credit: Neerav Bhatt – Lunar Eclipse 28th August 2007 – Viewed from Sydney Australia (Panasonic FZ30 420mm @ 35mm equivalent)

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes behind the Earth so that the Earth blocks the Sun’s rays from striking the Moon. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, a lunar eclipse can only occur the night of a full moon. This NASA video explains the science in an easy to understand way.

Best Camera Settings & Tips for Great Lunar Eclipse Photos

There are lots of articles out there telling you to use very specific camera settings to take lunar eclipse photos but I think they’re wrong to be so exact because people are using so many different types of cameras/lenses and taking photos from such diverse places around the world with different weather and atmospheric conditions in the sky above them that any single set of camera settings won’t work for everyone.

In general though:

• Use a tripod if possible – though it is possible to take eclipse photos with a handheld camera like my 11 Dec Eclipse photo at top of this page if you have a *very* steady grip and use a high enough ISO setting
• A medium/high end digital SLR with a quality telephoto/zoom lense is a lot more likely to get you an eclipse photo with a visible moon large enough to see details.
• If you don’t have a big zoom lense you can take wide angle photos of the moon as it moves across the sky and becomes more eclipsed, totality (fully covered), then less eclipsed. If you stack these photos together it can look very creative.
• If your camera is set up on a tripod use a remote/cable trigger to take photos as this will keep the camera steady compared to you pressing the photo button with a finger.

More technically:

• Turn off the flash! The moon is far far away. All your flash will do is light up a few metres around you and totally spoil the eclipse photo as well as your night vision ability to see the eclipse with your eyes.
• Using spot focus and spot metering with the camera focused right on the moon will help you get a photo of the moon with detail and colour rather than an overexposed white blob
• Don’t use a fixed shutter speed all night. The apparent brightness of the moon will change a lot depending on how much of it is covered by the Earth’s shadow. Set the shutter manually and experiment or set it to Auto if your camera is good enough.
• Don’t use a long shutter speed like 1 second or more because the moon moves across the sky and a long camera exposure will make the photo look blurred.
• Use +- bracketing if possible and experiment with different ISO settings to see which setting yields good detail and colour at any given moment
• Don’t be afraid to use a higher ISO (make the camera more sensitive to light) if your first few photos are blurry due to shakiness on your part. I took the photo at the top of this page at ISO Speed: 1250 handheld.
• If taking eclipse photos with your camera on a tripod you’ll be able to close down the Aperture (F stop) to whatever the optimal setting aka sweet spot is for your lens eg: F8 whcih will result in a sharper photo with better details. Every lens is different so you will need to experiment to find the sweet spot.
• If hand holding the camera without a tripod it’s going to be very hard for you to take a sharp photo with shutter speed slower than 1/30th second (amateur photographers) or 1/6th second (professional photographers)

Good Examples of Creative Lunar Eclipse Photography

Photos of an eclipse with dark sky or clouds are very good but the best photos have something else in the background like a bridge, building, mountain landscape etc or if you’re really lucky a plane flying across the moon.

photo credit: a total eclipse of the cold moon by yellow_bird_woodstock, on Flickr

photo credit: Lunar Eclipse by puzzlescript, on Flickr

I created a Flickr Group Pool called Lunar Eclipse 10th/11th December 2011 (10-11/12/2011) where I invited creative photographers to add their eclipse photos. EDITED: Unfortunately you cannot view them as a slideshow because that would breach copyright.

Earlier this week I visited NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) located at Tidbinbilla, 40min drive from Canberra in the Australian Capitol Territory (ACT). CDSCC’s radio telescopes provide continuous radio contact with spacecraft exploring the Solar System and beyond such as Cassini (Saturn), twin Exploration Rovers (Mars), Messenger spacecraft (Mercury), New Horizons spacecraft (Pluto) and Voyager 1 and 2, which have been in space for over 30 years.

The radio telescopes at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex are part of 3 stations in NASA’s Deep Space Network, the other two are located in Madrid (Spain) and Goldstone (USA). Tidbinbilla is operated by the CSIRO on behalf of NASA.

View Larger Map

The CDSCC Visitors centre has informative displays that will enthrall space fans young and old. The attached Moon Rock Café has a great view of one of the telescopes and serves good quality well priced food and drinks. I couldn’t resist buying a navy blue NASA baseball cap from the Gift Shop – a bargain at $15.50.

To drive to the CDSCC from the centre of Canberra follow the signs for Tourist Drive 5 (TD5). GPS Users: Enter into your nav.system: Discovery Drive, Paddys River District or coordinates: -35.39972,148.97086.

Glen Nagle (Education and Public Outreach Manager for CDSCC pictured above) gave my friend Nick Hodge and I a tour of the facility so I had background information for an article about the CDSCC for GEARE magazine. That article will only have space for some of the photos I took so here is a selection of the most interesting photos. You can view all of my Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex photos at Flickr.

Space is our Final Frontier. NASA’s Voyager I and II missions were supposed to last just 5 years from 1972-1977 exploring the outer planets of our solar system and yet they are still powering over 30 years later, continuing to transmit data to Scientists on Earth as they pass through interstellar space, exploring and boldly going where no man has gone before.

NASA Voyager photo credit: NASA

In 1977, two unmanned spacecraft, designed and built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, were launched on reconnaissance missions to the outer planets. Separate Titan/Centaur rockets launched Voyagers 1 and 2 in September and August 1977 toward Jupiter.

The launch window during 1977-79 which the Voyager missions took advantage of to fly by all four planets in our outer solar system happens only once every 176 years. If this window had occurred in 1965-66-67, we wouldn’t have had the technology to fly such a mission. If it had happened in the 80’s, we couldn’t have launched the mission as necessary rockets had been discontinued.

Each Voyager spacecraft carries a message in the form of a 12-inch gold-plated phonograph record. The record, together with a cartridge and needle, is fastened to the side of the spacecraft in a gold-anodized aluminum case that also illustrates how the record is to be played. The records contain greetings in 55 languages, samples of music from different cultures and eras, natural sounds of surf, wind, thunder, birds, whales and other animals, and a message from then US President Jimmy Carter.

In September 1977, Voyager 1’s camera looked back toward the home planet for a first-ever glimpse of the Earth and its Moon in a single photo.

NASA Voyager view of earth and moon. photo credit: NASA

Voyager’s fuel efficiency is quite impressive. Even though most of the launch vehicle’s 700 ton weight is due to rocket fuel, Voyager 2’s great travel distance of 7.1 billion km from launch to Neptune resulted in a fuel economy of about 13,000 km per liter. As Voyager 2 streaked by Neptune and coasted out of the solar system, this economy got better and better!

NASA Voyager Saturn’s Rings. photo credit: NASA

The rings of Saturn appeared to the Voyagers as a dazzling necklace of 10,000 strands. Trillions of ice particles and car-sized bergs race along each of the million-kilometer-long tracks, with the traffic flow orchestrated by the combined gravitational tugs of Saturn, a retinue of moons and moonlets, and even nearby ring particles.

Through the ages, astronomers have argued without agreeing on where the solar system ends. One opinion is that the boundary is where the Sun’s gravity no longer dominates – a point beyond the planets and beyond the Oort Cloud.

This boundary is roughly about halfway to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Traveling at speeds of over 35,000 miles per hour, it will take the Voyagers nearly 40,000 years, and they will have traveled a distance of about two light years to reach this rather indistinct boundary.

Barring any serious spacecraft subsystem failures, the Voyagers may survive until the early twenty-first century (~ 2020), when diminishing power and hydrazine levels will prevent further operation. Were it not for these dwindling consumables and the possibility of losing lock on the faint Sun, tracking antennas on Earth could continue to “talk” with the Voyagers for another century or two!

To learn more about NASA’s Voyager missions and view images these missions took during flybys of Jupiter, Saturn etc visit the Voyager JPL website

Download a high resolution desktop wallpaper photo of “The Crab Nebula” as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant, all that remains from the violent death of a star that may have been as much as 10 times more massive than our Sun.

In July/August of 1054, Chinese astronomers saw and recorded a powerful celestial explosion which brightened the summer sky. Appearing in the sky above the southern horn of the constellation Taurus was a star the Chinese described as six times brighter than Venus and about as brilliant as the full Moon.

The remains of this star were later christened the Crab Nebula, a cloudy, glowing mass of gas and dust about 7,000 light-years away from Earth.

The Crab Nebula is widely studied because it offers a unique opportunity to study high energy astrophysical phenomena. The physical processes that are at work in the centers of distant active galaxies and quasars are thought to be much like the processes at work in the center of the Crab, only on a vastly larger scale.

The difference is that while astronomers may never truly ’see’ into the very heart of an active galaxy, the Crab allows the properties and behavior of high energy winds and jets to be studied up close and personal

The glowing, eerie shifting patterns of light in the center of the Crab are created by electrons and positrons (anti-matter electrons) as they spiral around magnetic field lines and radiate away energy. This lights up the interior volume of the nebula, which is more than 10 light-years across.

The powerhouse at the center of the nebula responsible for this is a rapidly spinning neutron star – the compact core of the exploded star. Only about six miles (10 kilometers) across, the neutron star would fit inside a small town, yet its small size belies its significance and the punch that it packs.

In fact the Neutron star generates enough energy to make the entire nebula radiate over almost the whole electromagnetic spectrum and is so powerful that the nebula shines brighter than 75,000 suns.

When scientists look at a faraway celestial object, they are seeing it as it existed millions and millions of years ago, because it takes so long for light from the object to reach Earth.

“Variable star V838 Monocerotis”
credit: Hubble (NASA/ESA)

Astronomers can therefore “travel back in time” using equipment like the Hubble Space Telescope because light takes a long time to cross the vast interstellar distances in Space even though it zooms along at 299792.458 km/s

For example the rays of sunlight hitting earth this very second took 8 min 19.3 sec to travel from the Sun to Earth.

Similarly, Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our Sun and light from it takes 4.3 years to reach us on Earth.

So when Astronomers view Proxima Centauri through their telescopes they’re actually seeing it as it was 4.3 years in the past. If it imploded right now than we wouldn’t know until we looked at it 4.3 years from now.

Once telescopes became advanced enough to see outside our cluster of galaxies Astronomers could see see objects in space like galaxies as they were during the early age of Dinosaurs … a time that pre-dated our species.

Few things can let us see further out into the past than the Hubble space telescope operated by NASA and the ESA. Orbiting nearly 600km above us, Hubble is freed from the optical distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere.

Sadly the lifespan of the revered Hubble telescope is nearing an end, however the good news is that a telescope arms race is taking shape around the world.

Astronomers are drawing up plans for the biggest, most powerful instruments ever constructed, capable of peering far deeper into the universe – and further back in time – than ever before.

“Ring Nebula NGC 6720″
credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)

The building boom, which is expected to play out over the next decade and cost billions of dollars, is being driven by technological advances that afford unprecedented clarity and magnification.

In fact, the super-sized telescopes will yield even finer pictures than the Hubble Space Telescope, which was put in orbit in 1990 and was long considered superior because its view was freed from the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere.

“We know almost nothing about the universe in its early stages,” said Carnegie Observatories director Wendy Freedman, who chairs the board that is building the Giant Magellan Telescope.

“The GMT is going to see in action the first stars, the first galaxies, the first supernovae, the first black holes to form.”

The new telescopes will be so powerful that they should be able to gaze back to a couple of hundred million years after the Big Bang, which scientists believe happened 13.7 billion years ago. That’s where all the action is
- source: CNN

Explore the Universe From Your Computer

• Celestia – a free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Unlike most planetarium software, Celestia doesn’t confine you to the surface of the Earth. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.

  Over 10Gb of add-ons like textures, models or celestial objects are available at Celestia Motherlode

• Stellarium is an open source desktop planetarium for Linux/Unix, Windows and MacOSX. It renders the skies in real-time using OpenGL, which means the skies will look exactly like what you see with your eyes, binoculars, or a small telescope. Stellarium is very simple to use, which is one of its biggest advantages: it can easily be used by beginners.
• Microsoft World Wide Telescope – The WorldWide Telescope is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground- and space-based telescopes to enable seamless, guided explorations of the universe.

  WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft’s high-performance Visual Experience Engine, enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.

• Google Sky – Google Sky includes a number of different ways to explore the universe. The initial view shows the visible universe and is a mosaic of images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Digitized Sky Survey and the Hubble Space Telescope

Download a free 1024×768 resolution desktop wallpaper photo of the Full lunar eclipse on 28th August 2007 as viewed from south-western Sydney, Australia

Download Instructions

1. Click on the preview photo
2. When the full size photo is displayed from the Picasa web album – click on Download Photo in the right-hand side menu and Save

Full Lunar Eclipse on 28th August 2007

• Camera: Panasonic FZ30
• Wallpaper format: JPG 225 Kb in size
• Original Photo: TIFF 22.8 Mb in size

• F stop: 3.7
• Exposure time: 1 second
• ISO: 80

• Metering: Spot
• Focusing: Spot
• Focal Length: 420mm
• Original Resolution: 8 Megapixels (3264px x 2448px)
• Optical Image Stabilisation: Turned On
• Tripod Used: Yes

Every month I’ll publish a new 1024×768 resolution Free Desktop Wallpaper for your computer from the archives of photos I’ve taken, subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you get the next one.

Other photos I’ve taken can be viewed at my Google Picasa Web Photo Album