Clouds covered us. At the beginning of the eclipse, we hardly saw the outline of the Moon. And by 11:15pm I gave up and went inside. While on the computer my younger son came over to let me know the clouds started parting, and the eclipse was, indeed, visible. What serendipity.
I rushed outside to see cloud cover, but at least I could see the shadow of the earth starting to cover our lunar orb. I rushed back inside for my telephoto DLSR, tripod and cable release. I set up everything and tested for exposure. My exposures were on the money, as I had two other, rather miserable, attempts in past years. But this year, as my older son reminded me, was different. Not only was it a soltace lunar eclipse, it was just after a rain storm in winter. There would be hardly any particulate matter (dust) in the air. The clarity of the shots might be the best I would ever see. He was right.
And then the clouds parted. I didn't have to raise my hands like Moses to part the heavens. It just happened....
The above picture is not astronomically correct. I took about 200 images, and picked the best to sequence. The sequence is not correct by time, and neither is the trajectory of the Moon. Not with a 200mm. The image is just a digital collage that shows the sequence of the moon entering, and then remaining in earth's shadows. I was too cold, nursing a cold, to remain until the moon would come out of its neighbor's shadow.
I'll tweak the images later, but I wanted to share the wonder I had with this sight of a lifetime.
