Weather permitting of course, I'm hoping to capture the upcoming lunar eclipse, my fist in over 4 years. All except one since then has been clouded out & the other I was too busy to get out for it. Maybe this time.
Initially I was going with 3 setups - one for a moon close up, a wider one to catch Uranus as well & a 3rd wide field on just a tripod. But decided on doing just two:
Canon 6D, 102mm F/7 + 0.8x reducer (F/5.5) on an AZ-EQ5. This setup will be wide enough to capture the Moon & Uranus with enough resolution to crop in on the Moon if I want. It also gives me the room to play with exposure time & ISO to cover the 10 or 11 stops of light needed to cover the eclipse.
Canon 70D or 1100D on a tripod with a F/2.8 lens set between 16mm & 20mm depending on the foreground I have. This will allow me to get an image similar to my one from 2018 (attached, @ 20mm, that's Mars on the left). Again with enough adjustment to exposure settings to cover the needed changes in brightness.
Can't decide whether to use EQ or alt-az mode. As. here on the east coast. the penumbral part of the eclipse starts before moonrise & the actual eclipse about 30 minutes after sunset I'm thinking alt-az to save doing a full polar alignment giving me time to be fully ready to go by 8:00pm - partial eclipse starts at 8:09pm.
I'm still tossing up the number of images to take & the gap between exposures. I want to make 30 sec to 40 sec time lapse videos just unsure of a good frame rate to use. Will probably do an image every 15-20 seconds which will compress the 4 hours into ~30 seconds @ 30 fps.
Imaging will be controlled by two instances of APT, I'm trying to set it up so that at no stage will both cameras be imaging/transferring data at exactly the same time to avoid overloading the USB2 connection - may even attach each camera to a separate USB port rather than a hub, though one will still have to share a connection with the mount/focuser - not much of an issue there.
Well, that's my preliminary plans, hopefully the weather will co-operate for once. What's everyone else thinking of doing?
Sounds like you're having similar thoughts to me. I'm looking to try and capture the moon in its entirety through a refractor, and am tossing up between the choice of dedicated astro camera or DSLR, and struggling with getting enough clear sky to make sure I've got the back focus set up correctly.
Thanks for this heads up Mark. I'm looking forward to seeing the eclipse, although the moon will be mid eclipse when it's rising here in the west
That's what you get for being behind the times...
Starts here just after civil twilight ends but will be another hour until full dark. Just hoping something different happens with the weather, rather than the rain, clouds & wind we've been experiencing for months.
That's what you get for being behind the times...
Starts here just after civil twilight ends but will be another hour until full dark. Just hoping something different happens with the weather, rather than the rain, clouds & wind we've been experiencing for months.
Yeah mate the wild west Hope the rains and clouds clear for you east coasters soon
Sounds like a good plan just hoping the weather is in a good mood for us could be a bit windy and chilly ,we are going for a public viewing using the 12inch dob and a ed80 for some snaps ,i will be trying out the new skywatcher GTI
Sounds like a good plan just hoping the weather is in a good mood for us could be a bit windy and chilly ,we are going for a public viewing using the 12inch dob and a ed80 for some snaps ,i will be trying out the new skywatcher GTI
Hope it goes well.
Early forecast here isn't looking the best, not that I'm surprised by that. Looking like at least some cloud cover but hopefully not too much! Will have to see as the weekend progresses. I'll keep hoping right up to moonrise...
Haven't had a chance to get into the exposures yet. I do tracking was a little off so need to work on centring the moon for time lapses. Here's a small sample from the 6D on my 102mm.
Hope the rains and clouds clear for you east coasters soon 
