It was a perfect Colorado night to catch the blood moon – clear skies and a wide-open cloudless view of the night sky. The only downside was the 24^oF temperature. The upside is I was setup in my driveway so I could jump into the house to warm up and refresh my beer between shots.

In the photo below you can see the setup I had going. This photo was taken with my Fujifilm x100s at a little before midnight. The sunlight reflecting off the moon turned night into day as you can see by viewing the shadow from the tree on the right.

The camera on the right is my Canon Mark II with a 70-200mm f2.8. I was attempting to take a time-lapse of the lunar eclipse. This was my first attempt at a lunar eclipse time-lapse and I soon realized after an hour that the exposure for the moon vs the blood moon was two far apart. As a result the moon disappeared soon after the eclipse started. Chalk it up to a lesson learned. I need to practice my bramp timelapse exposure technique next time so I can capture the whole eclipse.

The camera on the left is my Canon 1Dx with a 300mm f2.8. This is the set up I used to take intermittent photos as the eclipse was occurring. The result is the eight-stage photo below.

These photos were taken over two hours starting at midnight mountain standard time and ending about 2am. I did not notice because the eclipse made it so dark but my camera was covered in frost when I came into the house – it was that cold! Luckily the frost did not cover the lens.

If you have never stayed up for the lunar eclipse I would recommend you do. It is a wonder of nature and well worth your time.

Thanks,

Mike