It took a last-minute chase, but I managed to capture the total eclipse of the Moon on March 14, 2025.
It would not be an eclipse without a chase. Solar eclipses of the total kind almost always involve travel, often to exotic locales around the world. But total lunar eclipses come to you, as they can be seen from an entire hemisphere of the planet.
Except there’s one problem — clouds! Over the last decade since 2014, of the eight total lunar eclipses (TLEs) I was home in Alberta for, I had to chase into clear skies for all but one. A recounting of one such chase from January 2019 is here.
Only for the TLE before this most recent (on November 8, 2022) was I able to stay home to watch it. Though in that case a snowstorm the day before made the roads and travel poor, so I had to stay home. I recounted that eclipse story here. You’ll find links to my other lunar eclipse stories below.
Once again, for the March 13/14, 2025 TLE, weather prospects looked poor. Not just in my area but in many regions of the continent. But there was hope!
The forecast cloud cover showed home to be hopeless. But a clear area was supposed to be open in southwestern Alberta, marked by the red circle above. That’s Waterton Lakes National Park, just on the US border. It’s a favourite place of mine for nightscape photography anyway (see my blog from this past summer here).
The chart above from the app Astrospheric shows the clear hole, and the dark blue on the time-line indicates the period with no clouds. Note how it coincides with the wavy line below which shows Moon altitude, with the orange and red regions indicating when the eclipse would take place. Looks good! So I made my plan to chase.
I knew the area well enough to know the site would be a good one for the eclipse, and the Moon’s location to the south. But it pays to check. I use The Photographer’s Ephemeris as my main photo planning app.
It showed the sightline toward the Moon during the eclipse as straight down Upper Waterton Lake. My chosen spot was on the lakeside Waterton Avenue, where I could set up both the wide-angle camera and a telescope without having to heft gear any distance. Winter road closures also limited my site choices. Indeed, in winter the Park is quiet, with only a few hotels and restaurants open, and many businesses boarded up.
Switching to the companion app TPE 3D (above) showed a preview of the landscape and the Moon’s position in the sky relative to the scene below.
Compare the simulation to the real thing below! Pretty accurate, except for the scattered clouds that drifted through.
The above image is a blend of tracked exposures for the Moon and sky, with untracked exposures for the ground. I shot them just before mid-totality at 1 am MDT. That image was second in priority. First, was a panorama. That result is below.
I shot this scene just as totality began, to ensure I got it. While the Moon was in clear sky before totality during the partial phase, sure enough as the Moon became fully eclipsed, the clouds wafting over the mountains threatened to move in and obscure the view.
Luckily, while they did hide the Moon now and then, they opened up enough for good views and images for a few minutes at a time throughout the eclipse.
For the panorama I processed the image for a more monochromatic look, to resemble the naked-eye view, but with the Moon appearing as a red globe in the sky, the only colour in the scene. (I shot the tracked shots with the MSM Nomad tracker I reviewed here.)
The site proved excellent, but it was a cold night! While the temperature was only just below freezing, the brisk Waterton wind off the lake made it a chilly experience watching the eclipse for two hours. I was actually being hit by ice pellets blowing off the lake.
I decided not to set up the telescope for close-ups; the wide-angle images were the priority anyway from such a scenic spot.
But I am not complaining. I got the eclipse, once again by chasing to where the weather predictions said it would be clear. The above is my requisite trophy shot.
Had I stayed home I would have been clouded out. Had predictions called for clear skies at home, I would not have made the trip to Waterton to enjoy the eclipse over its wonderful scenery.
The next total lunar eclipse is September 7, 2025, six months after this eclipse. But it is visible from the opposite hemisphere to this one, with no part of that eclipse visible from North America. I will not chase that far for a TLE!
After that, and after a passage of one lunar year (355 days or 12 lunar cycles) since the March 14, 2025 TLE, I have a chance for another total lunar eclipse from home, with western North America favoured. As I preview above, it’ll be an early morning event on March 3, 2026, with the eclipsed Moon setting in the west in the pre-dawn hours.
Sounds like another chase to a mountain site with the red Moon over the Rockies. That’ll be the plan!
— Alan, March 15, 2025 / AmazingSky.com
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