A few days ago the waxing crescent Moon joined the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars in the evening sky. A few clouds and the reflection of the evening sky in the lake added a bit of color to the scene.
Afterwards, I stayed around to watch the rocket launch described in the previous post.
The new Moon occurred a few days ago and just 23 hours later there was a thin (0.9% illuminated) crescent Moon visible in the evening twilight sky. I’ve been practicing with a recently acquired telephoto lens and this was another opportunity to have some fun with the lens.
Both of these images are crops from the original.
There was a full Moon this past weekend (05 February 2023) and we decided it would be fun to spend a few days at Grand Canyon and do some photography and hiking.
We arrived in the early afternoon at the East Entrance to avoid the possible long lines at the more popular South Entrance. Our first stop was at Desert View because I wanted to take some updated photos of the interior of the Desert View Watchtower. First attempts were with a 24mm wide angle but it was not wide enough. So, back to the car to get the 17–35mm ultra-wide lens.
For the Moonrise we went to the Visitors Center parking area and walked along the Rim Trail to capture the nearly-full Moon rising over the North Rim. Unfortunately, distant high clouds prevented seeing the Moon until it was well above the horizon. No matter, it was still very nice. While waiting for the Moon, I shot photos of hikers ascending the South Kaibab Trail near the Ooh-Aah Viewpoint with the late afternoon sun illuminating the rock faces.
The following day also included a photoshoot of the rising Moon but we had plenty of time before that and found ourselves hiking down Bright Angel Trail. The trail was covered in packed snow and foot traction was helpful. We opted to only hike down as far as 1½ Mile Rest House before returning. I didn’t time the descent but the return ascent was 57 minutes. Not too bad for 1.5 miles and 1120′ vertical gain.
The Moonrise photography went well with the Moon rising in the notch between Cape Royal on the North Rim and Wotans Throne in the Canyon.
The following morning we arose early to see the sunrise from Hopi Point. With the passage of a weak cold front during the night I was hoping for some dramatic clouds. Nope. Nothing. Clear skies but there was the setting Moon in the west. As a consolation I got early morning light on the Tower of Set and Horus Temple.
I hope you got to experience the total lunar eclipse that occurred 08 November 2022. I’m really glad we were able to see this since the next total lunar eclipse is not until 14 March 2025. This was also the second total lunar eclipse of the year but that previous one was attended by mostly cloudy skies and we only got a few glimpses of the Moon. This one was so much better!
But it wasn’t entirely certain that we would be able to see the event. There were clouds during the afternoon and evening. When I looked outside at midnight there were bands of high clouds stretching across the sky. But I was more than willing to take a chance and drive to a location in Sedona with very dark skies and warmer temperatures than we had in Flagstaff.
The high clouds continued during the beginning of the partial eclipse (U1) but we could see gaps appearing in the clouds and we ended up with mostly clear skies by the time the Moon was about one half darkened. Totality (U2 through U3) occurred during clear skies and there were only a few patches of high clouds during the final partial stages.
I was using a Nikon D750 and my legacy Nikon 80–200mm ƒ/4 AI-S manual focus lens. It has a hard stop at infinity which makes it very easy to focus in dark conditions. Just rotate the barrel until it stops. Done. It’s also a sharp lens especially when using it at ƒ/8. The camera was mounted on an iOptron Skytracker. This way I could keep the Moon near the middle of the frame and the only motion would be the eastward movement of the Moon against the background of the stars.
The Moon was close in the sky to the planet Uranus making for a more interesting setup. The eclipse last year was near Pleiades—that was really fun to photograph—but it was not quite a total eclipse.
The photograph at the top shows the Moon at various stages from beginning, mid partial, beginning of totality, mid totality, end of totality, mid partial, and the end. The next photograph shows the Moon during maximum totality along with Uranus. And, finally, there is a time-lapse video of the event.
Time lapse of the eclipse.
Previous eclipses discussed on this site: November 2021; May 2022
Finally, pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about eclipses can be found here: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEcat5/figure.html
I have been looking forward to this most recent Lunar eclipse for several months. I have worked up several scenarios to photograph the event, considered renting a larger lens, and more.
And, then, a few days before the event it became evident that it would probably be cloudy. All forecast models indicated increasing clouds moving in from the west. It was pretty obvious that I was not going to be able to capture the event from beginning to end.
That still left one possibility. There would be fewer clouds low in the east early in the eclipse so I might get a few shots of the beginning of the eclipse. So at the insistence of a friend, I joined him at Crescent Moon Picnic area near Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona.
The plan was to get a few twilight photos of Cathedral Rock before it got too dark. And then get a photo or two of the Moon as it rose between the spires of Cathedral Rock. The Photographers Ephemeris was used to determine the best spot to see the Moon in the gap.
And then we waited.
Right on time the Moon rose in the gap with the Moon visible from 2002 to about 2012 MST.
The photograph at the top is a blended image of Cathedral Rock at 1938 MST and the partially-eclipsed Moon at 2010 MST. Below are the two images before they were combined.
The next two total Lunar eclipses will occur 7–8 November 2022 and 13–14 March 2025.