January 31, 2018

January 31, 2018

The Great American Solar Eclipse last August increased the interest level of many Americans in astronomy. So today's lunar eclipse got a lot of publicity as the Super Blue Blood Moon. That is a mouthful. While this is the first for us in 150 years, its rarity is a little exaggerated. Blue Moons are just the second full moon in a calendar month. Not really noteworthy. Super Moons are full moons that occur at the orbital perigee. This occurs several times a year. While slightly larger and brighter, most of us would be hard pressed to notice the difference.  And blood moon just means lunar eclipse, which are not at all uncommon, like the solar variety. 

Even so, I got into the spirit. Tucson is a great place to be an astronomer with our cloud free skies. I could watch the progress and read the morning paper at the same time. The moon was already a quarter covered when I setup my camera on the front yard. I have photographed the moon many times, so I knew I had to manually dial down the exposure to get a good shot. Over the course of a half hour, the sun completely engulfed the moon. Luckily I got a shot with the moon just barely peeking out of its shadow.

I was a little surprised when the eclipse reached totality. Now the sky was pitch black and I had to carefully make my way down our sidewalk. In the shadow, the moon was very dim and took on a pale amber color, hence the name blood moon. Taking a photo was a lot harder. Instead of a milli-second shutter speed, I needed a full two seconds. No wonder primitive man thought strange gods were at work!