The first of four dreaded "Blood moons" has passed and my experience was that it wasn't very bloody, except when I imaged it. While I entertained the idea of going to a more remote location to view this eclipse, the weather reports influenced me to stay local. Though those reports weren't great, they weren't that much worse than other places. I ended up watching from my backyard and, while I did see the eclipse begin and enter totality, heavier clouds came in and kept me from seeing the end of it. Though there was visibility, it was poor because here was a thin veil of clouds throughout.
I started out trying to image it using my Nikon D40 with just my 200mm telephoto lens. I ended up switching to using my Nikon D40 mounted to my Orion 80mm refractor. I ended up wishing that I had used only the telescope from the beginning. Because of the conditions, I wasn't able to set the telescope up such that I could track the moon (no polar alignment), so I had to keep it in the field of view manually. None of the images are anything to brag about. My key learning was: Don't even try to image a total eclipse if you don't have clear conditions, and if you do have clear conditions, use a telescope with tracking so that you can use long enough exposure times to get the best quality image.
Visually, I didn't see any red through a lens on the telescope. Only the CCD imaging brought that out. I would be interested to hear what color people saw with the naked eye under clear skies.
Here are some of the images:
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| Before eclipse - 1/1000th sec. telephoto T0 |
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| Early in eclipse - 1/1000th sec. telephoto T0+38 min. |
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| Nearing totality - 1/10th sec. telephoto T0+1Hr 21min |
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| Almost there - 1 sec. telephoto T0+ 1Hr 30 min. |
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| Totality - 1 sec. telephoto T0+1Hr 32min |
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| Totality - 2 sec. 80mm Refractor T0+1Hr 56 min. |
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