The best that can be said for this is that it’s only 7am and I’m posting.
The next best thing that can be said for it is that it’s a minor miracle I caught it at all. Late yesterday evening a light mist came in – and stayed – and though the (uneclipsed) moon looked quite attractive through the mist, it looked less appealing through the thick cloud that followed. But I stayed up reading, just in case, and at the end of every chapter I got up, opened the back door, peered in the direction of a very slightly paler bit of the murky sky, sighed, closed the door again, and went back to my book.
And then at 4.45 – about half an hour before totality – I opened the door and saw this through the mist and a small gap in the cloud. By the time I’d put the camera and tripod in the doorway the cloud had closed again, but then there was another break that lasted long enough for me to find the moon with the camera via live view, focus, and take two frames. I had to take a punt on the settings because there was no time to experiment, so I was surprised and relieved that they came out.
The cloud then closed again, and though it teased me for the next quarter of an hour by partially clearing every few seconds, there was never any opportunity to get another shot, and by 5am there was no sign of the moon at all. But given the weather I’m pleased to have at least caught a few seconds of the eclipse, and in the circumstances I don’t think I could have done any better than this.
The rest of my morning will include breakfast, cutting some mounts, and going to bed and getting a few hours sleep. I just have to decide in what order.