This morning's lunar eclipse

This was at 5 am this morning, and only lasted for 5 minutes. Shooting it was a bit of work. Some thin clouds were forecast where we live in Santa Rosa, CA and it wasn't hard to talk my husband into making a run in the plane to Independence, CA (between Bishop and Lone Pine), where it was severe clear. The tiny airport there (matching the tiny town) looked like a good place to throw sleeping bags under the plane without being harassed, and it proved to be so.

Canon 7D2, 600mm II + 1.4X III, ISO 800, f/5.6, composite of 5 exposures from 1/15 sec to 2 sec. Tracked with an Astrotrac. Not much done except exporting the minimally-adjusted exposures out of LR5 into PS for compositing by hand, a slight High Pass filter and a modest Curve punch.

Cropped to 60% of original frame.

The moon was barely grazed enough by the earth's shadow to qualify as a total eclipse, hence the much brighter upper edge. The upcoming eclipse in September will be deeper in the shadow and will be best in the eastern half of the country. It will also be at a more civilized hour, just a few hours after sunset on the east coast, but only an hour or so after on the west coast.