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8:51 now. F3.5, 400 ISO, 226 seconds. 10 minutes from totality. This is a massive change in sky lightness and visible stars from the first images pre-eclipse.
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We have a crapload of stars in our galaxy! This is a 100% crop out of the image before, from a small area of the top center. Notice alllllll those faint streaks, there are star trails/stars everywhere. That's looking south towards some decent light pollution too. It just blows my mind to see those faint ones all crammed in there.
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8:59 and 34 seconds lol. 1 and a half minutes from totality.
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9:07 now, totality is here and this is the sky to the south.
Here is a sequence of images showing the land going dark, and the stars popping out as the moon is eclipsed off the left side. The first frame is at night, about 1 and a half hours after the sun set, and before the eclipse starts. It's dark out other than the strong lighting from the full moon. Then the eclipse starts. The last frame is after the moon is in totality. Watch how the ground gets darker each picture and also note the number of stars that become visible. There is a very subtle difference in the last two frames. You can start to see the light from the milkyway in the last frame.
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This is looking back east towards the moon in totality. This shot represents reality, how it looked at the time, the best I can. Only problem is the moon wasn't white, it was orange now. That little streak is a plane. Anyway, this is about how dark it was now. Earlier I could see objects out in the field clearly....not now! What I can see now are all the stars that I couldn't before. It just sucks to keep getting out of the car to mess with the camera and tripod when you can no longer see your surroundings. This reminds me. I tried to shoot some distant storms from the top of the hill last year. The moon was out and it was bright out for night time. I get up the long hill, just in time for a tower going up to send off an anvil, which rapidly blacks out my moon and my sight! I was way up there in the dark with no flashlight, thinking, oh crap this sucks.
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This was the next shot after the one before. F3.5, 800 ISO now, and 91 seconds. You can see the plane trail continuing in this one. If the moon wasn't shadowed, there'd be a massive blown out ball in the sky and hardly any stars. It is 9:11 now.
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This is about what the moon looked like at the time. Just a hair dimmer than this. It is 9:22 now, 21 minutes into totality, 29 minutes away from exiting totality. I tried several telephoto shots of the moon, but none are that sharp. To get this shadowed, dim, orange moon to show up, you needed a high ISO and a 3-5 second shutter. Several things killed my chances of getting sharp telephoto shots of that. The biggest was likely the breeze/wind. My tripod is not that heavy, and when you are out there at 400mm and needing a longish shutter of a couple seconds, well it can't move around at all. The strap was acting like a sail, not helping matters. I held it, but still the breeze blowing on things didn't help. The other thing is simply seeing the precise focus through the lens. My eye kept watering up as I held it open at the eyepiece in the freezing cold. Toss in some severe pain from bare hands in -10 to -20 windchill...well I rapidly lost interest in the slower shutter aspect of these telephoto shots. The bigger sky scenes interested me more anyway.
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9:34 now, as a rare car goes by.
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Shooting south again, this time getting the moon with the dark sky that direction. F3.5, 800 ISO, 206 seconds.
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9:44 now, only 6 minutes left in totality, but 85 minutes before the moon is completely out again. One thing I wanted to try were zoomed in shots of the orange moon in totality with something...but what. I thought I had an option with the hill as you come up here. While sitting here I didn't really think the moon was high enough, since that hill was so steep, and with the width of the road being the distance out from it you could get. But, I wanted to go look to be sure, so I leave here now and drive about a block away down to the right of the picture. I was just about stuck on some ice and snow where I was. Backing up was getting me closer and closer the fence, which would make sure I was stuck. Finally I get some traction and get moving. That would have sucked since any help from back home would take 40 minutes to get here. Then again, I'd already been here 3 and a half hours anyway. My car idled this whole time, and I was rather shocked how little gas that used(it ran for 6 hours solid, including about 50 miles driving, and only used 1/4 of a tank). Anyway, head on over to page 3 to see the rest.
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