Checking out the Lunar Eclipse

Monday night, Linda and I talked about the upcoming lunar eclipse. It was due to begin at about four a.m., earlier than either of us were really interested in getting up but... if either of us were to find ourselves awake at that hour, we could call the other and catch a peek. If we were really ambitious, we might go to one of the nearby parks with a lake and see if we could get a shot across the water.

At three o'clock, I woke up and looked outside. It was a crystal clear morning and the moon looked huge and full. I took a few practice photos and figured out how to get a decent looking shot. Wide awake, I took off for the park to see if there was a shot. At four o'clock, there was a smudge in the upper left corner. The park was gated and locked so tromping around the lake to get the right view was not gonna happen. Maffitt reservoir could work though... I called Linda and said "Look outside." She could see it and wondered what I was thinking. "I'm thinking Maffitt... and I'm not very far from your place. Wanna go?" She was in. I picked her up as the moon was about half covered.

We arrived at Maffitt and walked through the tall grass to get down near the water. There wasn't going to be much of a shot with the water but getting away from city lights had helped with the moon. I took several photos, adjusting to the changing lighting as the earth's shadow crept across the face of the moon. We'd heard that the moon would likely turn red as it went completely into shadow; we saw it happen. It was pretty impressive to see.

A couple minutes after the moon was pretty well covered, we heard the howl of a coyote far down our side of the lake. Linda and I looked at one another with raised eyebrows. That was interesting. Then came an answer from about a third of the way closer to where we were. Even more interesting! Then the third howl came from somewhere half way between us and the second howl. They were all talking and Linda and I were wondering if we'd be hearing another close to our location. We didn't need to hear one to decide it was probably not a bad time to head back to town.

The image above is actually several individual photos layered over one another show the progression as I saw it. The interval between shots varied from a few seconds to several minutes. Camera settings and locations also changed greatly between shots. All in all, it's fun to have put this together.