How To Watch The Lunar Eclipse, And Make It Last With A Stunning Photograph

Since the world isn’t ending Sunday with the coming of the blood moon lunar eclipse, it would a great idea to capture the rare phenomenon in a photograph. There are few guidelines for getting the perfect shot, but leave your smartphone out of it.

For a truly remarkable shot of the lunar eclipse, get a digital camera — a point and shoot or something fancier, like a DSLR. Whatever you shoot with, NASA’s senior photographer Bill Ingalls has one important tip he shared in a blog post.

“Don’t make the mistake of photographing the moon by itself with no reference to anything. I’ve certainly done it myself, but everyone will get that shot. Instead, think of how to make the image creative—that means tying it into some land-based object. It can be a local landmark or anything to give your photo a sense of place.”

Creativity aside, there are some techniques to think about while setting up the perfect picture. You can capture a wide-angle photo, bring the moon in close with telephoto shot, capture its progress with a multiple exposure pic, or get artistic with a star trail shot.

This wide-angle technique is the simplest, according to Nikon. All you need is a camera that can handle long exposures — about five seconds or more — and you’re all set. Long exposure simply means the camera’s shutter will be open a while. To keep your pictures of the lunar eclipse from blurring, use a tripod and either a cable release or the self-timer.

Wide-angle simply lets you take a picture of the lunar eclipse and its surroundings like Ingalls suggested.

Set your camera’s film speed, or ISO, to 400. According to Mr. Eclipse, you can also use your camera’s pre-set night mode and turn off the flash. To get more technical, set the lens to its widest aperture, or smallest numeric f/number, and snap a photo at bunch of different shutter speeds (five seconds to a max of 40 seconds).

The telephoto shot will let you get a large image of the moon. You don’t need a fancy lens or the fanciest camera to achieve this photo, either. If the camera has a powerful zoom lens, such a dramatic picture is well within your reach. Test out the camera’s capabilities before the night of the lunar eclipse, however.

But to get the truly dramatic shot, with the moon at its biggest (and this time it’ll already be a supermoon), a DSLR is needed.

Perhaps the coolest shot you could manage the night of the lunar eclipse is one that captures the rotation of the moon. With a very long exposure, you can capture the stars moving across the sky — in the form of the trail of light they leave behind.

An exposure of several minutes is needed to achieve this, and you’ll need a cable release. Again, an ISO of 400 is the starting place, along with an aperture of f/8 or f/11. Set the shutter speed to Bulb — that basically locks the shutter open. When the lunar eclipse begins, place the moon in one corner of the camera’s viewfinder so that as it moves across the sky, it’ll move across your shot.

The shutter can stay open even longer — an hour or more — to capture the entire lunar eclipse as it progresses. This will take up to three hours to move along a diagonal, so orient the camera so that it moves across the viewfinder in that direction.

When this photo is finished, it’ll have snapped a continuous photo of the entire lunar eclipse.

Finally, the multiple exposure is simply a series of individual photos taken at specific intervals over the course of the lunar eclipse, showing each stage. The trick with this shot is that you need to be mindful of the moon’s brightness, as this will change the picture’s exposure.

Set up this shot like you would the star trails shot, on a tripod as well. Start taking pictures as the partial eclipse begins, and then continue at five or 10-minute intervals — be exact — until it’s over. Mr. Eclipse has a handy exposure guide that’ll help you figure out the exposure (based on your ISO and f/stop) for each stage.

If you must drag out your smartphone during the lunar eclipse, Ingalls does have a tip for capturing it this way, though he said it would be “maddening and frustrating.” You won’t get a giant moon, but could capture a more panoramic shot instead.

His tip: “Tap the screen and hold your finger on the object (in this case, the moon) to lock the focus. Then slide your finger up or down to darken or lighten the exposure.”

The lunar eclipse gets started about 9 p.m., so Ingalls recommends bringing the kids. It is a historic event — the next one won’t appear until 2033 — so it’ll definitely be worth it.

“If nothing else, to just have them witness it and talk about what’s taking place … There are lots of great photos of people appearing to be holding the moon in their hand and that kind of thing. You can get really creative with it.”

[Photos Courtesy Bill Ingalls/NASA, Clive Mason, Joe Raedle / Getty Images, sippakorn / Shutterstock]