Lunar Eclipse

This past Thursday there was a partial lunar eclipse which means the shadow of the earth would cover part of the moon. However at the peak of the eclipse the shadow would cover 97% of the moon so it would be close to a total eclipse. Clouds and rain were in the forecast and it was cloudy for the beginning of the eclipse but it cleared up by 4am when it was peak and I was able to see the last part of it. 

Unlike a solar eclipse the moon doesn't go completely dark during a lunar eclipse but turns red. This is because the light from the sun get refracted by the earths atmosphere and lights up the moon. The color the moon turns depends on the clouds, dust and other particles in the atmosphere. Its different each time.

As the shadow recedes from the moon the color changes from red back to the normal gray. You can see the progression from the composite picture at the top of the post. I took those 7 close up pictures of the moon over the course of about 2 hours. 

Here is what it looked like out my front porch at 4am.

Luckily I was able to view the eclipse from my front yard. That let me go back inside and warm up between shots as it was cold and windy. Here is composite view up my street showing the approximate position of the moon over the two hours.

I'm getting a little better using GIMP to combine the close up moonshots with a landscape view. There is no way to take a single picture that will have the correct exposure for the landscape and a bright moon so you need take two more pictures and do a little photo editing to show how it looks to the human eye. 

On the evening of the eclipse I got a good shot of the moon rise. It seems our street sort of goes east to west so occasionally there is an opportunity to get a good shot of a sun or moon rise.

 

Lunar eclipses occur a lot more frequently than solar eclipse. The next one is May 15 2022 so expect to see some more picture here if the weather is good.