Lunar Eclipse August 28th 2007
With the lunar eclipse due, I was praying for fine weather as I knew the sight would be worth seeing. I waited and waited and when the appointed hour arrived went out to look at the sky. Rain cloud was skittering across the sky, momentarily obliterating the moon but it was fully visible, no sign of the eclipse. It then occurred to me that maybe it had already happened or maybe it was later than theyd said, after all, Dunedin is the opposite end of the country from Auckland and that was where the timings had been estimated from!
Keeping a careful look, dashing to and fro, into the cold air, about 2 hours after they said it would happen, the lower quadrant of the moon started to turn black. I went to and fro, to and fro, hoping all the time that the cloud would vanish. But it didnt. In fact, by the time only a top crescent was visible, the whole sky turned inky black, everywhere covered with cloud, no sign of the moon whatsoever! I was gutted!
I kept hoping, kept looking, scouring the sky for any sign of the phenomenon that we had been promised! Suddenly it was there high in the sky, like one of those amazing Chinese lanterns, the moon glowed orangey-red, suspended by invisible cords. A few clouds passed in front, making them glow red, too, softening the hard outlines of the moon. All the time, I was trying to capture what I was seeing on my camera.
Holding my breath and remaining still whilst the shutter was open, for a night vision photograph proved too hard to manage after a couple tries. So I resorted to using the normal landscape setting and shutter speed and seeing what the end result was. The orange or Blood Moon phase lasted over 90 minutes after the eclipse, very slowly emerging and casting its ghostly blue-white hues over the ground again.
They say it wont be until 2010 that we witness this again so I need to keep these reminders! Id seen partial eclipses, a total solar eclipse and other amazing skies, but this, with its amazing hues has to be just about my all time favourite so far! I dont have a fancy camera, its a Fuji FinePix S5600, but I am quite pleased with the quality of these pictures, despite some of them being blurred. With a tripod I mightve been able to get crisp outlines for them all! Ahh well, heres to next time!
