Eclipse!!

Last night there was supposed to be a lunar eclipse here - it being full moon n all... My dad n Hijaz were talking about it the night before saying it was to happen at 3:30 am or something like that.. Then my mum told me it was to be at 1:45 - so I thought what the hell.. Let's stay up n take pics of the whole thing!! Went outside at about 1:00 - equipped with camera n all and here's what I saw:

Was rather captivated with how the balcony looked in the moonlight.. Of course there is a bit of blur cos I'm holding the camera in my hand with a 8 second shutter with a fully open aperture (f/2.7)!! :)

The moon in its glory.. From all the way down here.. Again with an 8 second shutter and an f-stop value of 2.7. Pic taken at 1:00 am.

Increased the shutter speed for this one cos it was letting in way too much light otherwise - shot this at a shutter speed of 1/125 seconds and closed the aperture a bit too. Set it to f/3.5. This is at full 48x zoom and all you see is a white blob.

Now this one's at full 48x zoom too.. Just that I've increased the shutter speed further - to 1/400 seconds. Taken at 1:01 am.

I was just amazed at how nice the balcony looked in the moonlight.. The trees n all.. This pic I took - on a tripod obviously - with a 15 second shutter and a very open aperture (f/2.5). If you look at it carefully, you'll see how the trees are lit up by the moon and then you have the yellow light on the wall - from the lightbulb in the upstair sitting room. And then you've also got the white streetlight on the bottom left.

Quite similar to the previous pic - except that the focus here is more on the sky than the balcony. This pic looks so natural - in that you can see light all over the place. From the sitting room light, to the moonlight to even the stars! I guess that's what you can expect with a 15 second shutter and an f-stop of 2.7

That's what the moon looked like at those same settings - no zoom tho.. I like the way the light has reflected on the lens the way it has.. Of course the TV antenna has got in the way :( This was taken at 1:13 am

There's another one - same thing just minus the antenna.

The tree in the moonlight - 15 sec shutter, f/3.2

Just look at this - the reddish light on the bottom right to the gray sky to the white streetlight trying to come through the leaves.

Cloud cover soon began to set in - this is just the beginning. This pic's taken letting as much light into the camera as possible. 15 second shutter and an f-stop of 2.7. This is at 1:30 am.

More clouds! 1:31:00 am.

Still more clouds - only 1:31:54 am!!

Complete cloud cover by 1:32:44 am! The moon struggling to show its face. This is when my eyelids got the better of me and I just HAD to go. Besides I was being chewn up by mosquitos as well!! Blood suckers!!

Anywayz, being rather disappointed about missing the eclipse n all, I just commented to my dad that it was really cloudy last night n I don't think we could've seen anything anyway - to which he asked until what time I was awake. When I told him 1:45 he was like "What nonsense!! The eclipse was only at 5:15! And in any case you couldn't see anything!" *Shock!!* So much for communication!! Thank God I didn't sacrifice my precious hours of Sunday sleep to see an eclipse that you couldn't see in the first place. Was blissfully in the land of nod until 11 am :) Hey I needed it ok!!