[AZ-Observing] Eclipse: Sequence of Three Images

  • From: Tom Polakis <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>
  • To: AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2015 17:24:09 -0400

Despite threatening cirrus, only the last stages of the eclipse were at all
affected. We Jenn and I set up with the Mozdzens at the Usery Mountain Loop
Trailhead at the north end of Meridian Road in East Mesa. Using a TeleVue 101
at prime focus, I took some random photos, often exchanging the eyepiece and
camera in the focuser. Three of them were consistent enough to put together a
sequence that shows its motion against the stars.

http://www.pbase.com/polakis/image/161428047

Using my 5.5-diopter nearsighted eyes makes the angular diameter of stars
nearly match that of the moon. This gives my eyes the occasionally useful
feature of making eclipsed moon magnitude estimates. It was similar to Deneb,
so magnitude 1 or so. That falls in the middle of the range that I've seen
over the years between -2 and 4. When we packed up a half hour after third
contact, the temperature had dropped all the way down to 91F, with the dewpoint
still locked in at 55F. The lightning may be long gone, but it's still the
monsoon until the dewpoint gets back into the 30's.



A week prior, I carefully scouted out a site a mile to the south that offered a
nice view along McKellips to the hoodoos at the north end of the Superstitions.
With that sort of foreground, my moonrise photos would be headed straight for
APOD. In practice, though, it was a comedy of errors, which I feel compelled
to describe. The moon didn't cooperate, rising nearly a degree of azimuth to
the right of where it was 'supposed' to rise, meaning that it was a full 20
minutes after sunset before it emerged, by then many stops brighter than the
terrain. I managed to focus somewhere beside infinity through a 300mm Canon
lens that has a red ring; technically the moon isn't really infinitely far
away. At some point I attempted to increase ISO to 400, and landed it on ISO
1250. I thought this sort of stuff was limited to solar eclipses. To add the
final insult, the following morning, a friend posted on Facebook his phone
photo taken through the window at Sky Harbor Terminal 4 looking over the
Superstitions that was better than any of mine.

(link to award-winning photo would have gone here)

Tom
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