Just a quick post this week to share a couple of images of the blood moon, total lunar eclipse we were lucky to see this week. A nice clear day boded well and a thin veil of cloud on the eastern horizon cleared to give decent views of the rising red moon in eclipse. The red colour from being bathed in warm, long wavelength light lensing around the earth.

Photographically these are always challenging events to photograph, needing long telephotos and occurring in low light levels. A big challenge to sharp images is that the moon is low in the sky so you are looking through a wide layer of atmosphere with different temperature layers so it is not possible to get as sharp an image as when the moon is overhead.

Modern cameras and lenses with image stabilisation make a huge difference and I managed these images with a Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S supported on a fence post in my back yard at a shutter speed of 1/15s. Images processing in Adobe Lightroom and DxO PureRAW4 then to Photoshop and Nik ColorEfex for additional contrast adjustments.

For more info on lunar eclipses and some nice illustrations of the refraction causing the red colour see Lunar Eclipses on Wikipedia.