Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse

Being an admirer of All Things Moon, I, of course, knew that this weekend was going to involve one of the most stunning (and ominous!) sights known to man, that is, a total lunar eclipse. I also knew that the conditions were going to be good: mild weather, few clouds. This made this event rather different from its precursor that I photographed last October.

Unfortunately, I did not have the time to locate an aesthetically pleasing vantage point to record the Moon rise, which in my part of the North American continent coincided with a partial eclipse. This made the Moon resemble its own crescent, though much brighter and seemingly larger than one would look. 

The proverbial lemonade out of lemons ended up looking like this:

Blood Moon Eclipse

I photograph the Moon often, and have grown selective in terms of the kind of images I would like to capture. After all, my growing collection should be as multifaceted as possible instead of featuring yet another crisp Luna against the night sky, glorious though it is.

Uncommon—to the average observer—natural phenomena, like eclipses, should theoretically provide such an opportunity. Yet there are so many factors to consider—from being in the wrong time zone to thick cloud cover.  Waking up after a brief 'nap' in the middle of the night, I was a bit skeptical about viewing this month's Blood Moon eclipse, a real astrological killer, they say, thanks to the quickly changing weather conditions in the Rocky Mountains.

I was wrong—a welcome surprise—the clouds did not fully obscure this cosmic event and, in fact, enhanced some of my photographs. The only technical downside was that I could not use extended exposure times until the clouds dissipated, so as to avoid a shadowy blur. The reddish-yellow you see in the first image, for instance, was naturally obtained through a 10-second exposure.

The best part? Considering the multi-hour length of this lunar eclipse, I got as much of a chance just to observe it with the naked eye as I did to photograph it.