Last nite's lunar eclipse.

How unfortunate that the lunar eclipse happened last nite. If it was this night, it would have been a very unique 'chap goh meh' for a lot of people. Anyway, I went out to see the lunar eclipse with a friend last nite. I had no idea how to take pictures of the lunar eclipse but I thought that I'd try anyway.

None of the pictures turned out okay. In fact, they turned out down right bad. It was not easy at all. Plus the fact that I did not have a powerful enough zoom lens meant that the moon looked like a tiny speck. So, instead of taking pics of the lunar eclipse, I ended up taking night photos instead, with the moon in the background.

One thing that became fairly apparent was that our eyes and the camera perceived the moon differently. The moon always looked bigger in our eyes, while appearing only as a tiny speck in the camera. I remembered reading somewhere that this was an optical illusion but I cannot really remember the details. And indeed, according to the Beebs, even the experts cannot really agree on why it happens.

But it was an enjoyable experience anyway. It was my very first lunar eclipse. So, it was interesting to see the moon change colour and look really cool. I did notice something through my pictures though, that is that the moon was moving really quickly across the sky. However, I had only noticed this while trying to gimp some of the pictures. So, it was too late to set myself up to take a 'moon trail' series of photos.

Another good thing that came out of the experience was that we found a very good place to look at the night sky. The Magdalene fellow's garden is a fairly nice place to view the night sky. And there are chairs and benches to sit on while viewing it too. The last picture that I took was of the big dipper and it turned out really well. But I'll still stick to taking pictures of people.