It dawned on me last night, assuming that dawn can happen at night, that I have a difficult time not going out to photograph the moon, especially the full moon. Some people like babies, some people like cats, I’ve just never seen a moon not worth photographing. So, obviously, with a total lunar eclipse on the calendar last night, I had to get ready.
In the afternoon I went down to my usual location for photographing the moon in our neighborhood, the shore of Lake Mendota. I used the PhotoPills app on my iPhone to determine exactly where and when the moon would rise. As usual, this should be a good location. Later, however, the sun disappeared and the sky became overcast. I began to doubt the visibility of the upcoming eclipse.
The sky began to clear in the early evening so I took my camera and tripod down to the lake to see if there would be a chance for the moon to make an appearance. The moon was scheduled to rise at 8:01 PM. Seeing the moon rise would depend, of course, on seeing the horizon. From where I was standing, a cloud bank was occupying the horizon and then some. So, I dragged a bench over and, with music playing on my phone, I sat down to wait. Eventually some light started to show through the clouds. The photo above was taken at 8:39 PM as the moon finally started to make its appearance.
I expected other people from the neighborhood to come down to watch the eclipse. But, as it began, it was just me taking photos while singing along with a selection of classic songs. The second picture below, the first real obvious eclipse photo, was taken at 9:38 PM. When the moon was about half in shadow, a man walking his dog stopped by to watch. I turned off an Elton John song in order to speak with him while I continued taking photos as the shadow advanced. A couple came a little later and watched for a while, but all three people and the dog left when the moon was covered with a reddish tinge.
The photos above were taken between 8:51 PM and 1:21 AM. They weren’t all taken by the lake, however. As the moon began to reemerge from behind its red veil, it’s trajectory started taking it behind the tops of some nearby trees. Grabbing my gear, I walked back home. I’ve photographed some past lunar eclipses from my driveway and thought I might be able to get the last images there. But, I only took one from my driveway because trees also interfered from there. The moon was rather low in the sky the entire time so once it left the lake, trees were a problem. The last few photos were taken in the middle of our street as well as another intersecting street. There’s not much traffic in our neighborhood after midnight on a Sunday night so I wasn’t too worried about getting hit by a car.
After working on this latest batch of lunar pics, I began to wonder about past eclipses. I don’t photograph every eclipse; some aren’t even visible here. Digging through my digital images, I discovered some from lunar eclipses on 10/8/14 in Madison, 9/27/15 in Yellowstone National Park and 2/10/17, 1/20/19, 11/19/21, and 5/15/22 all in Madison. Every time there’s an eclipse we see the same moon, even the same face of the moon, going through the same game of hide and seek, so why would I bother? I also discovered that I had assembled sets of eclipse images before. I’m not sure why; maybe to post on Facebook.
Even when there’s no eclipse, I’m still chasing the moon with my camera. I must have the largest collection of “Moonrise Over Lake Mendota” photos.
I even have photos of special lunar events like a Super Moon and a Blue Moon!
Of course, I’ve had other posts in the past about moon photos, such as this one about Lunapics.
It seems like psychiatrists often say that some of our behaviors and interests can be traced to events in our youth. But I don’t need a psychiatrist to explain my lunar love to me. I’m sure most of my friends and relatives already know. If you don’t, read about it in My small Apollo footnote. Thanks for putting up with my obsession.