Tonight's lunar eclipse is almost upon us! Once the time comes (3:07-4:24am EST), let's see those moon photos - share them in this thread I will be taking the F* 250-600mm for a spin tonight.

Here's a guide we've put together on shooting the moon. It also contains specifics about this particular eclipse:
Photograph a Red Moon: Total Eclipse Tonight - Photographic Articles - PentaxForums.com

Here's an example of what we might see tonight as the moon passes through Earth's shadow:

(photo credit: wikipedia)

[cheekygeek]

Taken from Kearney, NE with a Pentax K-01 at ISO 800, 1/10 sec at f/8. Sigma EX 50-500mm f4.5-6.3 APO DG (Bigma) at 420mm. These were simple camera on tripod exposures (no tracking/guiding)

Full frame:


Crop of the above with micro contrast enhanced a bit with Topaz Clarity:


Same exposure, except ISO 3200 at 500mm:
Full frame:


Crop of the above:


Comments and criticisms welcome. Full account:

This was one of our planned astrophotography classes (open to the public at our small university, thanks to a NASA grant), but since my
wife was ill, and I figured I could do it as easily from my yard, Idid not attend the class at the observatory. I set my phone alarm to
1:35 AM (I thought) but somehow made it PM. I awoke a couple ofminutes after 3 AM and hurried out the front door with the equipment I
had set up the night before.

One dumb thing I did was attache my p0 ballhead to the K-01, insteadof the Bigma's tripod foot. No idea why I did that, but the Arca-Swiss
monoball p0 did a find job of supporting the whole thing with no sag,even racked out to 500mm. I was very impressed with that. I HIGHLY recommend that
ball head. Huge weight capacity and can be tightened / loosened with mittens, if need be.

I haven't had time to closely look at all of the images, but it was obvious on the Live View/Focus Peaking that there were moments of
better seeing and other moments of blur, due to the atmosphere. I shot with the 2 sec self-timer to hopefully let any movement from my
pressing the shutter button settle down. (No mirror flop to worry about with the K-01)

If it is clear for the next one in October, I think I will try to bracket and HDR to include some stars in the image. Hopefully I will
be a little better acquainted with my tracking equipment and will be able to do a time lapse, of that one, as well. With a little planning
I could probably be shooting both cameras on different tracking equipment (K-5 II and the K-01).

[joip]

Was truly a marvelous night for a moon dance in Colorado! This was my first time shooting the moon as well as the first time using my Sigma 150-500. I tried many many settings and these two were my favorites. I added the color just for fun!

[cheekygeek]

PS... for Pentaxians interested in astrophotography and on Flickr, I recently started a Flickr Group specially for Pentax: https://www.flickr.com/groups/pentax-dslr-astrophotography/

The title says "DSLR" but K-01 and Q/Q10/Q7 shooters are welcome to share and learn also!

[LeicaVirgin]

Love the first pic! That's an awesome foreground though out I would have cropped off the blob at the very bottom.

Blob cropped!

[Beach Bum Brian]

Pentax K-5ll DA 300mm... f4, 1/4 sec, 12,800 iso
This was the first time I shot one of these and I didn't realize how dark it would be around the time of full eclipse. Sharpness was definitely a problem at such a slow shutter speed and high iso.
Not to mention, lots of noise reduction I shot this last night on the north shore of Oahu.

[richandfleur]

I didn't realize how dark it would be around the time of full eclipse.

Yes it practically disappeared at full eclipse, it was quite something. If I hadn't have known where it was previously I would not have been able to locate it in the night sky!

[joip]

Yes it practically disappeared at full eclipse, it was quite something. If I hadn't have known where it was previously I would not have been able to locate it in the night sky!

Same here - I totally missed those shots but will know better next time!

[pesterle]

A couple of the ones I shot last night. Pentax K-3 and Sigma 50-500 lens. I was also using the Astrotracer function of the GPS unit.

[Sage97]

Awesome shots guys.

I woke up when my alarm went off, thought about it for two seconds and went back to sleep. Oh well. I'll try to get up when it happens again in October.

[Fl_Gulfer]

Great photo's guys!!!!! We got rained out! to say the least..... It stormed like hell most of the night...

[troika]

Nice work everyone, thanks for sharing!

I went out, but so did the cloud cover...you've inspired me for the next one!

[mamba909]

There are some great shots being shared in this thread. Here's my contribution from Southern California.

[KRaZiGLiTcH]

Just saw this thread ^_^

Lunar Eclipse Moon 2014 Australia
Used my 18-135mm at 135mm and cropped to %100 and did some sharpening in CS6 15/04/2014 Australia
Tripod was used

2
f/7.1
ISO 80
18-135mm at 135mm
and Processed with Photoshop CS6

[pesterle]

This one has gone through a bit more processing than the others I've already posted. Before the eclipse began, I took a shot of the fully illuminated moon, and then processed that image to enhance a lot of the surface contrast of the moon. I then took that image and used it as an overlay of a shot taken just before totality to enhance the surface textures of the eclipsed moon.

I probably overdid it, but I was mostly doing it as an experiment.

[PentaxScott]

After seeing how dim the moon was through the camera, the O-GPS1 just went way up on the list of toys to get next. Thankfully, I was able to squeeze out a bit more detail in a reasonable end result thank to Registax.