Total Lunar Eclipse (2014-04-14/15)

My original plan was to do a time lapse of the eclipse from my backyard, but technical glitches (i.e. operator error) busted part of it. Also, here in Fresno, CA, the eclipse started with thin high clouds which gradually thickened after mid-eclipse. So, at about 1:30 a.m., I shut everything down and started to pack up. That's when I noticed that the clouds had mostly and quickly dissipated. Oh well.

At least the interview I did around 8:30 p.m. with a local TV news reporter turned out fine. (He and the cameraman got quite a kick out of looking at Jupiter and the Moon in the two scopes I had set up.) The reporter I talked with got it right when our segment aired. Too bad the TV station's meteorologist made a repeated mistake by saying that the partially eclipsed Moon (i.e. between U1 and U2 and between U3 and U4) was in the penumbra rather than the umbra. I had even explained this quite clearly to the reporter and gave him a very nice diagram of a lunar eclipse.

Anyway, I was able to salvage some images from my time lapse attempt. Focusing was difficult because the clouds dulled the Moon's features. This first image has a time stamp of 10:57 p.m., which is just about at contact point U1.

Telescope: Celestron C5+ with 0.63x focal reducer (Net FL = 790 mm)
Mount: Celestron Advanced VX
Camera: Olympus E-5 (4:3 format; crop factor = 2)

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An hour later, at 11:57 p.m., the Moon looked like this.

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The 3rd and 5th photos are my favorite ones. You were way luckier than Jill and I. At best the Moon was a haze in the cirro-stratus. Right at totallity is when the clouds said, "Okay, you don't need to see this anymore!".