Eclipse! Fun watching, little success photographing

Joni Mitchell warned us:  Clouds get in the way:

A clouded view for openers

A long eclipse — more than an hour of almost-total coverage of the Moon’s disk.  Clouds came and went, with a few good viewing times.  With the naked eye, the view was spectacular.  Through the 200 mm Pentax zoom, not quite as spectacular, even with the tripod mount.  Photographing eclipses takes some skill that I don’t yet possess.

Clouds took a break

Eclipse totality

Eclipse nearing its end

Near the end of totality, where the shadow slips away from the full Moon, a bright white light provides a dazzlying view that confounds the light meters.

Celestial orange, tinged in silver

Step back, see a few of the starts, even from inside Dallas city limits

To every Earth shadow, there's a silver lining to confuse the built-in light meter

Blood-tinge gone, Earth's shadow retreats (all photos by Ed Darrell)

Eclipse nearly over, clouds again fog the view

Longer lens, better tripod next time.  (Heh.  We should live so long.)