With the much-anticipated total solar eclipse coming across the continental US in less than 2 weeks' time, I was past due to get the ecliptic photography setup tested and into action, and what better target than thing that will cause the eclipse - the moon itself!

Using the niche Olympus Air A01 consumer camera (micro 4/3), I fired up my old eclipse-control Python script that was last in use for the 2017 solar eclipse to click off some automated exposures of the always-beautiful gibbous moon. As a validation run, the script was configured to collect 260 quick exposures in succession using the rapid-fire mode on the camera body. Outside of some wireless connectivity issues that I'll resolve with some USB extension cables for the WiFi dongle at the eclipse, things worked to perfection and I have what is (surprisingly) likely the best gibbous moon image I've ever taken! The ol' trusty Registax 6 software -- which feels decades old at this point -- always does amazing work with its linked wavelet processing, and some small tweaks and adjustments in PixInsight and Photoshop have really brought this image to life.

Next up for solar eclipse testing is full solar disc white light imaging, which is planned just 12 hours after this shot!