Partial Lunar Eclipse Imaging Session - April 26, 2013

On the early morning of April 26, 2013 ,  a very subtle partial lunar eclipse was visible for all of us to see here in the Philippines as well as whole of Europe, Africa and Asia. The Earth's umbral (dark) shadow will only cover less than 1.5% of the Moon's northern surface area but it will be totally immersed on the penumbral (light) shadow nevertheless.

I started to image the penumbral stage of the eclipse at around 2:31am at home as I prepare myself to drive to Rajah Sulayman Park in Baywalk to get an unobstructed view of the western horizon. I then drop by 7-11 convenient store to get myself a hotdog and soda for me to consume while waiting for the eclipse stages.  I brought along my Canon EOS 500D DSLR with Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS L lens set at 400mm f/5.6 mounted on Vixen Polarie Star Tracker.

Unfortunately, clouds started to interfere after 3:00am and I had to shot through cloud openings before I got totally shut down by clouds after I image the beginning of umbral phase at 3:54am.  I patiently waited till around 5:00am and seeing my poor chances of imaging the rest of the duration of the eclipse.  I packed up and called it a day and went home still satisfied as I initially thought I wouldn't be able to image the eclipse because of very thick clouds last night :)