In most parts of the world the ‘Blood’ Moon Eclipse was visible during the wee hours of the AM today. In Anchorage Alaska it was around 2:15 am that the Eclipse was viewable. Being a total insomniac I simply stayed up a little longer to watch. Kathy G practically bounced out of bed when I told her it was nearing the peak and we set up the camera outside. Reuben who is visiting from Seattle, watched on for a little while while Kathy and I fiddled with camera settings and placement. Eventually, everyone who wasn’t completely enamored with the night sky headed inside to watch Kathy and I try to find buttons with slightly numb fingers from the windows. At some point I got around to putting my shoes and a hat on. Kathy and I are known for standing in the cold night to get Moon photos or the iconic Northern Light shot. Most people and the dogs leave us to the frost within a few minutes.
Thanks to the Gardner’s zoom lens, I managed a few decent shots of the various stages and coloring of the Moon during her Eclipse.
Blood Moon Eclipse
Photographing anything at night is difficult. Shooting the Moon makes this even harder as one cannot use a long shutter speed (Moon is too bright). Add in a Eclipse that changes the brightness every few minutes even more so..Using lenses that were not made to take night pictures adds a bit of a challenge as well…
I like to think I made it work. At it’s ‘darkest’ below.
Dark of the Blood Moon
As the light shifted, the colors brightened. The light specks in the black are stars showing through. All the pictures I took I did not edit past some basic cleaning up, no photoshop, no adding colors and such. Looking at it with binoculars it looked just like the photos!
Eclipse Waning
Partial Eclipse and the last of the ‘blood’ coloring that was visible. Once the ‘Full Moon’ brightness came back , capturing the low light of the eclipse at the same time became next to impossible.
Partial Eclipse
It was an awesome night, I hope my pictures give you a small idea of how freaking cool it was! At 24 degrees, my digits got a little cold after close to 2 hours of standing in PJ’s. But it was worth it!
~ J
Life of Journey 