Early in the morning, there was a Lunar Eclipse visible in Australia. I have photographed many of these over the years and they are not difficult – as the Moon even when eclipsed is easy to locate, and you don’t need a dark sky, but you do need a tripod and telephoto lens. This eclipse was taking place at an inconvenient time – from 3:30 am till about 5 am, so it would mean getting up in the middle of the night. But at that time, the Moon would be visible from my balcony and that was convenient. Also, it should mean that the eclipsed Moon would be quite red in colour – a so called “Blood Moon”.
Above photo taken at 4:19 am. 600 mm at f 5.6, 1/4 second, 3200 ISO.
I took a series of photos and later found some suffered a bit from clouds.
Above photo taken at 4:25 am. 600 mm at f 5.6, 1/4 second, 12,800 ISO.
The so called “Blood Moon” is a nice phenomena to observe. It is rather disappointing to see photos posted on social media that are ridiculous composites – eg the eclipsed moon appearing to rise behind the Sydney Opera House. And then quite worrying to see people praising the photos and thinking they are genuine. Working out how a lunar eclipse forms is not very difficult – bit it seems a lot of people have no idea.
The last time I photographed a lunar eclipse was in 2022 and on that occasion I also photographed the planet Uranus. It was only visible because the Moon was eclipsed and so much fainter than it usually is.