Total Lunar Eclipse Saturday March 3rd 2007

Hi Everyone
Just wondering about the upcoming lunar eclipse on March 3rd and if anyone on the forum has used a camcorder fitted to a standard tripod to record previous lunar events? (Sorry, I don’t have a telescope / ancillary equipment just at the moment ).
I am presuming that the analogue tape of the event could then be possibly digitised and enhanced by software, e.g., Photoshop or RegiStax on a PC! Anyone tried this setup?
Hoping for clear skies!

All the best
Mike

Hi mike, I used a camcorder for recording the total eclipse in Turkey. i used this with some success. I have never tried this with the moon though. As John says stick with optical zoom. I would not bother running it through registax, just enjoy it as a movie of the eclipse. when the moon is back in the sky, I would start messing with exposures etc so that you are ready for march 3rd.

One thing I would try is a low power, high field-of-view binoculars - fix one eyelet to the lens of your camcorder and see if that works (experiment beforehand, of course).

Seanie.

Thanks John, Trevor & Seanie, for the good advice.
The camcorder I have a loan of is a high end Panasonic 3CCD system and I have a frame grabber with software to create a movie file. I have a 7x50 binoculars that I could make use of.
I don’t want to get caught up in the technicalities of the night’s event as has been stated and missing the real show, especially if we have clear skies. It’s just an experiment out of curiosity to see what the results would be.
As John said, “My advice is use a pair of binoculars and sit back and enjoy the show- weather permitting”, i couldn’t agree more.

Many thanks for the information
Regards
Mike

Hi Mike,
You have 3+ weeks before the eclipse, so try getting the crescent/half moon and see how that works out.
I would not recommend trying this on the night of the eclipse unless you are fairly comfortable and confident with it. No point missing the eclipse while fidgeting with the equipment.

Thanks Dave
I understand, will do.

Cheers
Mike

There is now a real chance that it will turn out to be a very good eclipse. I have to work on a database migration that night