Waking up several times during the night is not unusual for me, but this time it was different. Although it wasn't yet four O'clock, the railings outside our window were lit up, so I stepped out onto the balcony and craned my head to see the source, about the brightest full moon I ever saw. Then I remembered the article in the paper that described a rare total eclipse that was going to begin in about half an hour.
There's not much traffic in Encinitas California this time of night, and in our area about three miles from the coast there was none. So, the venture began with my treating the public streets like my private road, ignoring one way and stop signs (very carefully) and gliding into the parking lot overlooking the beach in about five minutes. I got out my equipment, set up the tripod and shot this picture.
Well, actually I shot this after quite a number of test shots to get it right, something you have the luxury of during a slow moving event that spans about an hour and a half. As someone brought up on film, I remain amazed at the ability to see each shot immediately after it's taken and make corrections. That spot in the upper left side is the moon, already with a chunk of it missing.
My camera is a five year old Casio Exelm 7.2 MP, a model that defines the history of this type of camera. It was the end of a trend towards adding features, multiple modes and capabilities such as the manual function that was vital for this shoot. The instruction book is near a hundred pages, just in English, as they had incorporated a virtual SLR of options such as film speed, aperture or bulb exposure. This cost money to develop and to document, and they discovered something more; that for this market, complexity is not only not appreciated, but actually harms sales. The next model of this line started a trend to simplicity.
But I had a picnic, playing like a real photographer, bracketing every shot, evaluating how much I could zoom beyond the mechanical limit before the reduced number of pixels degrades the picture.
Here's one where I used an ISO 100 emulated film setting, at 3.2 seconds with an F. 7.4 aperture
The contrast between the part of the moon that still reflected the glare of the sun was too much for my camera to handle, so we have the illusion of an explosion of white.
The number of people along the ridge was growing, with families starting to arrive as dawn slowly lighted the eastern skies. As the eclipse approached totality, the moon dropped lower in the sky, with the denser atmosphere creating a type of filter that decreased the contrast, while, of course, there was no longer any direct sunlight brightening the moon.
Heres the best shot I could get of mid total eclipse at a five second exposure.
After this shot, the moon slowly faded into the brightening morning sky, but this time unlit by the sun it disappeared from view before it fell below the horizon. Unlike the moment of a sunset, that distinct last gleam of light that on rare occasions is even accompanied by the spark of a green flash, this eclipse just imperceptibly faded until it was no more.
When I first arrived at the ridge, with only the distant moon breaking the black of night, it was sort of dramatic. I couldn't tell whether the other person on the bench was a local like myself, or a tourist, or maybe one of the few street people who have taken up residence in our town. Was that coat she was wearing her only protection against the elements that she faces every night, or just something she dug out of the closet for this early morning adventure? I offered her the use of my tripod for her little camera, which she declined, and we struck up a bit of a conversation. She like me, was a resident enjoying the special morning, alone because her kids were sitting in the warmer car.
And as the morning brightened, and the crowd thinned out, we all became more friendly, and those with cameras discussed megapixels and such. Even though I was tinkering with a camera the whole time; looking at the moon disappearing as it has done occasionally for the last billion or so years, I gave a thought to those beings, our forebears, who must have noticed and been disturbed by it.
What could they have thought was happening? Had they heard tales of this from older members of their tribe?. Did they wonder whether the moon that had been just been taken would return the next night to protect them from their enemies? To make it less frightening someone would have made up stories to provide assurance that if they did the right things the moon would return.
And if the person who made up the stories had been really smart he would have insisted that everyone must believe them, and talk to the power in the sky that ate the moon, and sometimes eats the sun, so he will give it back. And, it turned out when everyone obeyed, and spoke to the power in the sky in just the right way, sure enough, the sun and the moon returned each time.
Thank God we live in a more enlightened time and no longer need such stories.