Red Moon over the Red Rocks of Monument Valley

What a great site to watch the Moon turn red in a total eclipse.

I can’t recall a more scenic total eclipse of the Moon. I planned this site as best I could from Google maps and other apps, and the location proved ideal.

As the Moon went into the Earth’s shadow it set into the notch between the two peaks of this mesa at Monument Valley, Utah. It was a stunning celestial sight seen from one of the most dramatic scenic sites on the planet.

This was the total lunar eclipse on the morning of April 4, 2015, an eclipse that was barely total with just 4 minutes of totality with the Moon within Earth’s umbral shadow. The top of the Moon, grazing the edge of our planet’s shadow, always appeared bright white, as expected.

The lead image is a composite of many exposures: short ones for the partial phases that flank a longer exposure for the single image of totality and and even longer exposure for the sky and landscape, all taken over the course of 2.5 hours with a fixed camera – don’t bump the tripod!

I shot this image with the second camera riding on a tracking platform. It is a bend of three exposures: two long ones for the sky and ground and a short exposure to retain the Moon and avoid it turning into a white overexposed blob.

The long sky exposure was taken with the tracker on, to keep the stars as pinpoints, while for the ground exposure I turned the tracker motor off to keep the ground sharp. I layered and masked these with Photoshop.

The last image is a single image only, just one exposure, taken a few minutes after the end of totality as the sky was quickly brightening with the blue of dawn. It captures the naked-eye scene.

I shot all these from my B&B for the weekend, the Tear Drop Arch B&B, named for the arch on the mesa at left in these images. I chose the spot to provide a scenic foreground to the western-sky eclipse without having to drive miles in the pre-dawn hours. I was moments away from bed as the sun rose and the eclipsed Moon set.

Next lunar eclipse: September 27, 2015, in the evening for North America.

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