So yesterday was the last lunar eclipse until 2010, and fortunately for me, it wasn’t cloudy. But it WAS damn cold. And since I was too lazy to put on any socks, it didn’t help my frozen little feet. Another challenge? American Idol was on for two hours, one hour of it during the actual eclipse. Thank God for commercial breaks! I headed out onto my driveway with my trusty tripod, camera, zoom lens, camera hood and plastic bag. Why the plastic bag? To put my camera in before going back inside, preventing my camera lens from fogging up in the warm indoor air.

I remember seeing a lunar eclipse when I was a lot younger, with my low-tech telescope that my dad bought me perched on top of our family station wagon. I don’t remember if it was cold back then, just that me, my sisters and my father patiently waited for the moon to disappear. My spotty memory doesn’t recall how much of the eclipse we saw, or even if it was a total eclipse, but I do remember being happy.

Anyway, the last time I tried watching the lunar eclipse, I was in Buffalo and it got cloudy just as the eclipse was about to happen. So I was determined to watch this one, and with my new fancy schmancy technology, take pictures of it. My neighbors and the 7-11 workers across the street may have wondered about the weird lady coming out at weird intervals with her tripod and camera, taking pictures of the sky. But had they been watching American Idol, they would have realized that I was going out during the commercial breaks, which was just enough time to see the eclipse in different phases. Each time, my tripod was SOOOOOO cold as I was bringing it back in, since I didn’t have gloves on. I fought the temptation to lick the cold tripod to see if my tongue would stick, “Christmas Story” style.

Anyway, I took a lot of pics, and only a quarter turned out well. But there were some good ones, so here they are!

The total lunar eclipse - the moon is blood red and you can see a sliver of the moon on the right side

Zoomed out a little bit - the star Regulus is at the top and the planet Saturn is on the left

All the phases of the eclipse I saw
Didn’t finish the eclipse because it was damn cold outside!

It was incredible to witness. However, it was not fun going in and out of the house to take pictures. Since the moon was high in the sky, with the tripod I had to kneel on the ground to position my camera, so my knees were frozen. Also, during the total eclipse it was hard to focus my camera on the moon. It was also difficult to figure out the right settings for my camera, but I think I did OK this time around!

Tags: Photography, Memories, Stories //