Ghostly Galleon

Yesterday we had a full lunar eclipse at around 5:30 in the morning, and I had intended to try and make a movie of it. But when I woke up it was cloudy and I was 'tired' from Stuey's birthday party anyway. So no lunar eclipse movie and it sure felt good to go back to sleep.

Last night I decided to look into the technical aspects of making a movie of the moon. It's pretty darn complicated! I got out both of my cameras and their instruction manuals and went at it. It turns out that my little point and shoot (Pentax W60) does better at night time time lapse photography than my 'good' camera (Canon G9). The G9 creates better time lapse movies but I could not get it to do this and expose for night time light. And while the G9 takes excellent, high quality night time photos there does not seem to be a time elapse automatic picture feature on it. I ended up using the time elapse feature on the W60 and then stitching the photos together into a movie in imovie, but I also shot a long (over an hour) time elapse video on the point and shoot. I have stitched both of the movies together so that you can decide which one works better. I do know that next time I need to turn of the little green auto exposure light.

Anyway, the next time we have a lunar eclipse I'll be ready for it!
Patrick