The evening of September 27, 2015 was a beautiful one in central Kansas. Light winds, a cloudless sky, and comfortable temperatures made for a great evening to be out. A few minutes after sunset, a super moon rose through the haze of the horizon. I chose to photograph the moon against this windmill.
I photographed the first 3 images with a 300mm lens, to include more of the surrounding environment. I then switched to a 500mm lens for the next image. This isolated the windmill and moon. I was across the pasture from the windmill, so the long lens also compressed the scene and helped to give the moon a much stronger presence.
From both experience and a quick scouting mission the night before, I knew where the moon should be from various locations in Great Bend. I started at Stone Sandpit, so that I would have a good view as the eclipse started. I decided to do a time lapse image. I took a 1 second exposure to capture the glow of the bright moon on the sandpit waters. I then took a series of photos that were only 1/160s long, so that the moon would be properly exposed. I then merged individual moon shots with the landscape image. Each moon photo is 3 minutes from the previous image.
As totality neared, I relocated to the Barton County Courthouse. I captured the following image just after totality. I did replace the moon with a better in focus image taken a couple of minutes later.
The next image is the First United Methodist Church, north side.
I finished the night back at Stone Sandpit. I captured a wide angle photo, exposed to show the stars. I did have to replace the moon with a properly exposed image since the 15 seconds for the stars left the moon with motion blur.
The following two images show the difference that focal length and time can make in lunar eclipse images. The first image was taken at 300mm at the beginning of totality. The second image was taken at 500mm at the end of totality. I cropped both images to the same size; neither focal length will create a frame filling view.
I enjoyed the night, especially since the eclipse happened at a decent hour of the day and the weather wasn’t bitterly cold like many of the recent eclipses.
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Rob Graham, Great Bend, KS
Graham Photography's Photographic blog 