A lunar eclipse is one of the more forgiving events to shoot with the Dwarf — the Moon is bright, tracking is reliable, and you don't need the calibration ritual a deep-sky or Milky Way session demands. The one thing that trips people up is exposure: the Moon dims dramatically as totality approaches and brightens again as it clears, and a fixed manual exposure set at the start will be badly wrong by the end. Here's the setup I'd run for a clean, mostly hands-off timelapse.
Recommended Setup
Shoot in Time Lapse mode with Auto Exposure (AE) — for a lunar eclipse specifically, letting the app chase the changing brightness is more reliable than trying to manually ride exposure through totality yourself. Set your interval to 15–30 seconds: 15 seconds gives a smoother, more detailed final sequence, while 30 seconds conserves battery and storage if you're running long. Use the VIS filter, and make sure Moon tracking is switched on before you start. For framing, Tele gets you a close, detailed Moon; only switch to Wide if you specifically want the Moon sitting in a landscape rather than filling the frame.
Before You Start
Fully charge both the Dwarf and your phone — a lunar eclipse timelapse can run for hours once you include the partial phases on both sides of totality. Set up on a stable tripod on firm ground; any wobble shows up directly in the finished sequence. Focus, frame the Moon with some room around it so it doesn't drift out of frame, and confirm tracking is actually locked before you commit. Start recording a few minutes before the phase you actually care about, and once it's running, don't touch or move the setup — every bump is a jump cut in the final timelapse.
Manual Backup Settings
If Auto Exposure isn't giving you a result you like, switch to manual and adjust off the live preview instead. Keep exposure somewhere in the 1/100s–2s range, and if the image is coming in too dark, raise gain gradually rather than jumping straight to a high value — suggested ranges are 0–40 on the Dwarf 3 and 40–80 on the Dwarf Mini. The target is keeping the bright limb of the Moon from blowing out into a flat, featureless white patch: lengthen exposure and/or push gain up as the eclipse deepens, then bring both back down as the Moon brightens again afterward.
Grabbing a Hero Shot Mid-Eclipse
The timelapse is built for the overall sequence, not your best single frame — so if you want one high-quality still during totality, pause the timelapse, switch over to Photo & Shoot, and dial in exposure and gain against the live preview. Capture the shot, then switch back to Time Lapse and resume recording. It's a short enough interruption that it won't meaningfully hurt the final timelapse, and it means you walk away with a real hero image, not just a frame pulled out of the sequence.
Quick Recommendation
Time Lapse mode, 15–30 second interval, Auto Exposure, VIS filter, Moon tracking on. Go with 15 seconds if you want the smoothest finished video, or 30 seconds if you'd rather capture fewer frames and save battery and storage.
This setup is based on the lunar eclipse timelapse guidance published by DWARF Lab for the Dwarf 3 and Dwarf Mini, written here in my own words.