UPDATE [August 20, 2024]: If you have followed the news you know there was a Blue Super Moon yesterday. However, it was different from the one I wrote about below. The one last year was a monthly Blue Moon, while the one yesterday was a seasonal Blue Moon. A monthly Blue Moon is the second full moon in a calendar month, whereas a seasonal Blue Moon is the third full moon in an astronomical season with four full moons, occurring between an equinox and a solstice. Why is the 3rd instead of the 4th full Moon in a season the Blue Moon instead of the 4th? Good question! If you know why, share it in a comment.
As for being a Super Moon, that label applies to both the full Moon yesterday and the one for last August although last August the Moon was slightly closer to Earth (about 2,700 miles closer).
With the extreme Texas heat, lately I've been waiting till after sunset to take our Weimaraner, Luna, for a walk and we've been walking along the shore of White Rock Lake near where we live since it's often cooler with a little breeze coming off the water.
I had not planned to shoot the Blue Moon tonight, but after my wife Linda asked if I would be, it occurred to me that it would be visible over the eastern shore of the lake when Luna and I were out walking. I decided to see if I could get a shot of the full Moon rising over the sailboats at Corinthian Sailing Club before our walk. I grabbed my small refractor (Sky Watcher EvoStar 72ED), my Nikon D750 and a tripod, loaded Luna in the car and headed to the lake.
Apparently, so did everyone else. I guess the news of the Blue Super Moon got enough press that lots of other people showed up at the lake to watch it rise and traffic driving up the west shore was like rush hour. By the time I was parking the Moon was already well above the tree line. I hastily set up the scope and camera, got a reasonably good focus on the Moon and started shooting. All the while, Luna hung out with me, thankfully only wrapping her lead around the tripod as I was finishing up.
Ironically, the shot below was the first shot I took. Of all the others, I could perhaps merge a few bracketed shots for something with a higher dynamic range but frankly this is pretty much the shot I had in mind when I left the house.
While the Internet and both digital and print media made a big to-do over the recent lunar eclipse, the January 2019 Super Blood Wolf Moon, I was actually a little disappointed in this one. Yes, it was big. Yes, it was red. Yes, it was, well, a Wolf Moon (the name used for a January full Moon for centuries, according to the Farmer's Almanac). But there's a problem... it was almost straight overhead.
Why would that matter? If your primary interest is being able to see the entire eclipse, start to finish, then there's no surer bet than a night like Sunday night. A great example is the wonderful composite by a fellow Texas Astronomical Society member, Jason Ware (you can see the original post for this on Facebook here).
Jason Ware Jan 2019
Another of my favorite shots from this latest eclipse was from a Canadian astrophotographer, Alan Dyer (below and here). Similar to Jason's shot above, I like how both are a composite that show the key points in the sequence.
Alan Dyer Jan 2019
However, for me the Moon is often more interesting seeing it juxtaposed against something earthly, whether man-made or natural. Here are a few examples from past lunar eclipses I've shot.
This first shot below was taken in September 2015, the day before my wife's birthday, while we were in the Northwest visiting friends who live in Vancouver, WA. Shot just east of Portland, that's a very bald Mt Hood below the Moon (snowfall had been pretty sparse that year). The eclipse was already in progress as the Moon rose that night so it was in totality by the time it was just above the mountain. What an incredible view!
Nathan Eaton Sept 2015
Of course, sometimes a lunar eclipse occurring when the Moon is close to the horizon is not a blessing. For example, the shot below was taken of the January 2018 Super Blood Blue Moon setting over downtown Dallas. It occurred during morning twilight so the sky brightened well before the eclipse was over and before the Moon had set, making it difficult to really get the full effect of the total eclipse.
Nathan Eaton Jan 2018
On the other hand, sometimes what you see in an image is not necessarily what it looked like in person. Whether you realized it or not, I bet you have seen a widely shared, simply amazing view of the Moon above a city skyline or similarly distinctive foreground, one where the Moon just jumps out at you! Often times, this is really a combination of two great shots, one of the foreground and one of the Moon but where the Moon had been altered by enlarging it and possibly moving it to strategically position it in relation to the foreground. I think many of these are really stunning and a joy to see. What bothers me is when it isn't made crystal clear that the photographer has taken poetic license, that it isn't a realistic portrayal of the Moon. Thanks to the Moon Illusion, we are used to to the idea that the Moon looks larger close to the horizon so it is not surprising that many people assume a shot where the Moon looks larger than normal is real.
A variation of this is composites similar to the ones above but where they are over a foreground subject. I am a big fan of these but, again, when the Moon is shown "larger than life" relative to the foreground, I think the photographer needs to call out the exaggeration. A great example of this done well, both the photograph and the photographer being upfront about what changed, is this shot by Jason Weingart that was highlighted in PetaPixel.
Jason Weingart Jan 2019
As another example of why it's important to be clear about when a shot has been materially changed, consider this post of a "larger than life" shot of the moon by Beau Rolfe on Facebook. In Beau's very cool shots, taken of the December 2018 full Moon, the lunar orb really is this big, but it's because it was shot with a really long lens (600mm), not because he edited the image in software to make the Moon look larger or shot the Moon with a longer lens than the foreground was shot with. Regardless, his shots still raised questions of "where can I go to see it that large?" and "was this Photoshopped?" (questions friends of mine brought these shots to my attention to ask about).
When you have a lunar eclipse like this month where the Moon is high in the sky, the focus (at least for photography) turns more to the Moon itself rather than the Moon and a foreground landscape. Here are examples of that, one from April 2014 when we were at the Perot museum into the middle of the night for an eclipse party and also a similar one at height of the latest eclipse, taken Sunday night from our backyard. Both were shot through our 10" Dobsonian telescope, captured with camera on my phone pointed through the eyepiece. Not ideal (see the lens flare in first one and the "field of view" in second) but I think they are still interesting shots.
Nathan Eaton April 2014
Nathan Eaton Jan 2019
As fun as it is to see all the different ways in which people shoot an eclipse, I also like the other ways in which people celebrate the eclipse. For example, I didn't make it there but one of our favorite watering holes, The Flying Saucer, had a unique way of celebrating, offering "Moon related" adult beverages.
One of the other fascinating aspects of this eclipse is the historic first sighting of a meteor strike during the eclipse. A key contributing factor to discovery of this event was that scientists were actually looking for it. It would have been pretty incredible to have been watching through my telescope just as the strike occurred!
To close, I'm including a couple of shots I took from the backyard Sunday night. First, a shot taken with my Nikon D750 using the longest lens I had handy, a 120mm Nikkor (actually, the D750 kit lens, a 24-120mm zoom). Image is cropped from an HDR stack of three bracketed shots.
Nathan Eaton Jan 2019
Finally, here is is a shot of the evening with us huddled around the fire pit trying to stay warm while watching the eclipse with our 8 month old Weimaraner, Luna. Not only is her given name take from the Moon, but her AKC registered name, suggested by our granddaughter Kai, is based on such an event: Runner's Lunar Eclipse. Seemed fitting to have her out with us while we were watching such a beautiful sight. I hope you were able to catch a glimpse of it, too!
The journey continues beyond 2009... check it out!
