Lunar Eclipse Photos

By Robert Bernstein

Here are a few photos I took early this morning of the total lunar eclipse.

Nothing fancy. I just used my camera out in our apartment courtyard in Goleta!

This was the period from the peak of totality around 5:30AM until the light began to return to the moon about an hour later. After that, it fell below the horizon.

Notice how when it was near totality it had the famous blood red tinge! That is actually a reflection of the simultaneous red sunrises and sunsets of the Earth that were shining onto the moon.

Here is the moon at the peak of totality at 5:30AM. Notice the stars around it.

Here is the full view from the courtyard, including a blinding street light and showing how small the moon really is in the sky

This was at 6:11AM as the light just started to return:

This was at 6:14AM

This was at 6:16AM with a shorter exposure to keep the light area from washing out completely

These last few include a bit of the surrounding trees for perspective. Notice the sky is getting brighter and the moon is getting lower

I tried a number of techniques, including High Dynamic Range and multiple image overlays to synthetically increase dynamic range. I think the best photos were with the lowest ISO of 80 and long exposures of a couple of seconds. Obviously, a tripod was needed. And a 2-second timer release so that the shutter press did not cause a vibration.