Lunar Eclipse and Seattle at Night Photos
A couple of weeks ago there was a total lunar eclipse. Fortunately, it was one that could easily be seen from the USA, clouds permitting of course. And when it comes to Seattle and clouds well, let’s just say that you better get friendly with them if you live here.
At the end of last year, I bit the bullet and repurchased a digital SLR camera – the same one I lost in Europe. The eclipse gave me the perfect opportunity to trot it out and see if my night-time photo taking chops had improved. I set up the photo op with a buddy from work, Nick, who is into photography even more than I am.
It was a bit cloudy in Bellevue so we figured to drive east to get away from the clouds and light pollution of the city. As we got to North Bend though, we were faced with some of the darkest blackest clouds I had seen in a while. Thinking we would have to call the whole thing off because of clouds, we headed back home. Back near Bellevue though we noticed that we could clearly see the sun setting to the west. That was our cue to go as far west as possible before it got too late.
We pulled on to Admiral Way in West Seattle with no time to spare. There was a view point along the street and about fifty people were lined up along the railing alternately admiring and photographing the newly orange moon. We got our gear out and set up; Nick was kind of enough to loan me his 400mm lens to use, while he busted out the monster 600mm.
It took a bit of getting used to using such a long lens but pretty soon I was snapping some shots of the moon that were putting huge smiles on my face. Meanwhile, there was a line of people waiting to look through Nick’s telescope. Eventually the eclipse was over and I swapped to my wide-angle lens to snap some photos of the Seattle skyline, which we also had a fantastic view of. Finally, I did a 180 and messed around with taking my first “light trails” photos with the traffic on Admiral Way behind us.
I was pretty pumped about some of the shots I got and even though I froze my butt off standing out there, you can bet I’d do it again.
You can check out all the photos at my Lunar Eclipse and Seattle Night Sky gallery.