red moon

So I planned to head out I-35 to the picnic area with the longhorn-silhouette shelters, south of the Justin road, about 4:30 am to see if I could compose some interesting photos of the lunar eclipse Tuesday morning. However, I stayed up late, and then I couldn't get to sleep and couldn't get to sleep, so then of course around 3am I fell sound asleep. I'd have missed it all, except Amy took a chance that I wouldn't be mad if she called me at ten after five!

I didn't go so far, turned off on the Ponder road and wound around on a couple of back roads to a dark farm driveway. There were a lot of vehicles that passed even on those dark roads; lots of Denton County country inhabitants having jobs in the Metroplex to which they commute at 6am.

Turned out the camera batteries were failing, so I would shoot a few quickly and then turn it off. Then I'd have to get it all set again next time - adjust ISO, set manual focus, zoom out, etc. Astronomical photography is not really the best use of a digital camera that's not much more than a point-and-shoot. I couldn't even see the dark moon in the viewfinder among the various bright symbols, till I had set the ISO up to a very noisy 400.

Still, I got a few half-decent images of the deep, dull orange totality. Then one side got very bright as it edged out of the shadow just before 6:30. Finally, about a quarter to seven, the partially illuminated moon was visible above the pre-dawn illuminated field. I think there are some sleepy cows under the trees. (Click on each image for a larger view.)

Half an hour later, after winding around exploring out around the municipal airport (if I'd had the camera ready earlier I could have caught an ascending small jet just above the dawn moon), I got back to the west side of town. The ghostly huge red sun rose in the haze, behind a low bank of clouds, appearing to come up through a slot, behind some clouds and in front of others.

Finally, going back nine days, here is the waxing moon trapped in the girders of the "MegaDrop" ride at the county fair.