I spent the entire day previous to the “Super Blood Wolf Moon lunar eclipse” scouting out good locations for my first attempt at photographing the event. At dinner time on eclipse day the weather still was not cooperating so I began racing around the Kelowna & Winfield area looking for a spot that had the least amount of moisture & cloud in the air, and settled on the parkway at Wood lake. I could see the Oyama & Winfield area had low cloud and fog throughout, and all of my other planned  locations clouded over along the mountains as well. My last minute spot allong the parkway turned out to be the best choice.

It was a great learning experience, in terms of being completely prepared. I thought I’d be at high elevation with lower temps and less humidity and icing. The valley bottom conditions at the lake front made it so I had to wipe my lense dry for nearly every shot. The cloth was saturated within the hour. With every wipe, I had to refocus the lens manually, looking through a tiny viewfinder, switch to screenmode to preview the previous shot, zoom in digitally for the details, then readjust focus again if needed- to beginning the cycle all over again. I dutifully repeated this process for 420 captures. The moisture and clouds plaid havoc with the ability to get a crisp focus, as did the extremely sensitive focusing distance I had to work with on a 75-300 lens. Every 3rd shot I had to readjust the tripod to re-center the moon in the field, which then through off my previous work to focus…

Are you laffing with me yet..? 😀

Note to self: next time, try strapping some hand warmers around the lens. Bring many many lens cloths.

I did have a small group of people gather with me to watch the eclipse who were from the Winfield area. An older couple discovered me at the lakes edge, and a father with his two daughters joined us at the camera. It was a great opportunity to do some public astronomy outreach; the camera, my binoculars and the sharing of information was very well received. It was a fantastic experience for all!

I hope very much that you had the chance to see this amazing celestial show. Looking forward to the next lunar eclipse!