Eclipse from 20 May 2012

I have always been fascinated with the sky.  Whether it be the day or the night.  I travel sometimes out to the desert at night to get a clear open sky with almost no light noise just to watch the stars and planets above us.  and if I am really lucky, i'll catch a satellite or meteor streaking across the sky above.  I can sit and watch the night sky for hours.

And just like any amateur photographer, I am always trying to capture shots of the moon.  I have yet to take a closeup of the moon that I am happy with, however, I have captured some great scenic shots . . . never crisp or clear . . . but beautiful scenes.

As far as eclipses, I am always excited to see those too.  My first one that i remember was back in the mid 80s when i lived in Phoenix.  I headed down to the plaza in downtown Phoenix where there was a big gathering of people.  I was delighted when i was able to witness the image of the eclipse being filtered through the leaves onto the ground.  It was like magic!  thousands and thousands of eclipses decorating the ground around me.  Oh, to have had a camera back then to capture what i remember so vividly.

Yesterday's eclipse was better than I could have hoped for.

I live by the coast in San Diego and although the marine layer was starting to set in, i was able to capture some shots of the sun and moon that i was happy with.  Not the perfect shots that some others were able to capture, but shots i do like.  Relatively crisp.  and just enough foreground to add some depth to the images.

I shot these with my Olympus E620 with my telephoto lens with a Polarizing filter on it.  The grey ones were taken by my home and the marine layer helped to create an eerie black / grey look to them.

The start of the eclipse

After the fog complete socked us in, the eclipse disappeared from my view.  However, as I could see further east, the sun was still shining at a higher elevation.  I trekked off as fast as I could and I was able to capture the eclipse was it was starting to wane.  The moon had come in from the bottom right and was just exiting the top left.

The end of the eclipse about 1.5 hours later

What an awesome treat to see this.  I can't wait for the next one!