There's a total lunar eclipse, like, right now.  It's amazing   I've been taking photos like some kind of mad woman, because although they're not that rare, it's usually cloudy or at stupid times in the morning so I don't get to see them. 

So yes, of about 45 images taken before all my batteries died this is the best one.  Not photoshopped (well, cropped and sharpened a tiny bit but that's all), still a little bit blurry but I'm rather pleased.  Most of the other images came out quite badly - there was one other decent one but it's a bit too bright for my liking.  Took a while to figure out the right sort of exposure I needed though - obviously I'm a bit out of practise, oops. 

That's a 5 second exposure at f4.8 (using a tripod, obviously).  Full 6x zoom, so about 210mm in 'normal' terms.  Not bad for a compact camera, heh.

I also tried to get some pictures of it when it was still only partial, but that didn't work, probably because I'd got too long an exposure so I ended up with a big round fuzzy blur - not even with any bits missing!  But totality is more impressive anyway   

tags: photo physics science