Digital Eclipse Photography

A digital camera, unless it’s a professional model or a digital SLR, is unlikely to have a lens with a focal length long enough to provide a satisfying lunar image. The solution is to shoot through a telescope.

Since most consumer-level digital cameras don’t have removable lenses, the only way to take pictures through a telescope is with the afocal method, whereby the camera is aimed directly into the telescope’s eyepiece. You can hold the camera by hand, mount it on a separate tripod, make or buy a bracket, or use an adaptor to attach the camera directly to the eyepiece.

For recording the partial phases of a lunar eclipse, a digital camera mounted behind a telescope’s lowest-power eyepiece can produce fine close-ups. After overriding the camera’s automatic metering system, you should be able to capture the entire disk of the Moon — the part immersed in the deep shadow core, or umbra, together with that in the vastly brighter penumbra (the shadow’s outer fringe).

The online article "Astro Imaging with Digital Cameras" describes many of the tricks and techniques involved in taking astronomical images this way. But when digitally imaging a lunar eclipse, the key is to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. The beauty of going digital is the immediacy with which you can see the effects of various settings — and change them! Since a lunar eclipse is a leisurely affair, you can keep on trying until you acquire a good image.