For those who ventured outside into the chilly 25-degree temps late Wednesday evening, they were treated to a first-class Total Lunar Eclipse courtesy of Mother Nature. Here's a sampling of lunar images captured at various times throughout the evening...
Here's my very first shot at 10:25PM EST, when the moon was already completely eclipsed in the Earth's shadow, giving the moon a noticeably reddish brown tint amidst a sea of stars that normally wouldn't be visible. I was just casually hand-holding the camera for this photo.
Then... realizing the potential for capturing some serious lunar imagery... I went back inside, layered up with some extra-warm clothing, and returned with the heavyweight 400mm F2.8 lens paired with my Canon 1Ds Mark II camera and tripod for the remaining set of images captured on the back end of the eclipse.
At 11:29PM EST... still some reddish brown tint to the moon, and you can see the Earth's shadow was very distinct, revealing a brilliantly lit moon beneath it. This image was exposed for the upper portion of the moon still in the Earth's shadow...
By 11:35PM EST... the Earth's shadow was becoming a bit less distinct. The next two images were exposed for the lower portion of the moon coming out of the Earth's shadow into the "normal" evening light.
At 11:44PM EST... the Earth's shadow continued to recede upward, revealing more of the moon...
And around 12:30AM EST -- roughly 20 minutes after the eclipse officially ended... here's our full moon completely out of the Earth's shadow and bringing a noticeable brightness back to the evening sky. The next Total Lunar Eclipse viewable in this part of the world won't occur until December 2010.
