This was the lunar eclipse to watch. Hasn't happened like this in over four hundred years. Full Moon, Elilpse, and Winter Solstice, all rolled into one. What a gorgeous sight it was going to be. Except for one tiny problem.
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.
