Mount Laguna Lunar Eclipse

Provided and copyright by: Joe Klein
Summary authors & editors: Joe Klein

I set out to photograph the total lunar eclipse Monday August 27, 2007, leaving the city of San Diego about 11:00 p.m. (local time). It took less than an hour to arrive on Mount Laguna in the Cleveland National Forest, where I was able to scout the best location that would provide unobstructed views. I found a large turnout about 5 miles (8 km) south of the Mount Laguna visitor center that provided a view not obstructed by trees, but would have some trees and foliage suitable for wide-field photography. The morning's finale came about an hour after the end of the eclipse as the Moon set into a multi-colored sky near the western horizon. The photo at bottom shows the Moon about an hour after the eclipse had ended.

Photo details: The camera used was a Nikon D50 with a Nikkor 300 mm with a 2X teleconverter. The lens was set to f 5.6 and I bracketed the exposure using various shutter speeds and judged the results on the camera monitor. I used 200 ISO setting during the Moon's brightest stages and increased the ISO setting to 800-1600 while the Moon was covered.