The total eclipse of the Moon, October 8, 2014, the Hunter’s Moon, as seen and shot from Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, Alberta under mostly clear though slightly hazy skies, thus the glow around the Moon. The planet Uranus is the brightest dot left of the Moon at 8 o’clock position. Both the Moon and Uranus were at opposition. This was the second in a “tetrad” series of 4 total lunar eclipses in a row at six-month intervals in 2014 and 2015. I shot thus just after mid-totality though with the northern limb of the Moon still bright in this single 15-second exposure at ISO 400 with the Canon 60Da, and with the Officina Stellaire 80mm apo refractor at f/6. It was mounted on the Sky-Watcher HEQ5 mount tracking at the lunar rate. I chased into clear skies to see and shoot this eclipse.
The eclipsed Moon, October 8, 2014, over the Milk River and Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta, with the Sweetgrass Hills of Montana to the south at left. The Moon was in total eclipse when I took this, and shines at right as a bright red glow. Lights from Coutts and towns in Montana light the clouds on the horizon. Orion and the winter stars stand at left, with Sirius at far left and Aldebaran and the Pleiades at top centre. The buildings in the valley below are the old NWMP outpost buildings from the late 1800s. The night was partly cloudy and hazy, thus the glows around stars and the Moon. This is a 1-minute exposure at f/2.8 with the 14mm Rokinon lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400. The ground however is from a stack of 5 x 1 minute exposures to smooth noise.
An HDR stack of images to encompass the range of brightness from the bright portion of the lunar disk (at right here) still just in the penumbral shadow, to the dark portion of the disk at left deep in the umbral shadow. I’ve processed the image for enhanced contrast to bring out the color variation along the umbral shadow boundary where it appears blue, from sunlight filtering through the high atmosphere of Earth in the stratospheric ozone layer. I shot this at the October 8, 2014 total lunar eclipse, from Writing-on-Stone Park in southern Alberta. This is an HDR-stack of 11 images at 2/3rds stop intervals from 5 seconds to 1/5th second, all at ISO 800 with the Canon 60Da and 80mm f/6 apo refractor. Stacked in HDRPro in Photoshop with 32-bit ACR tone-mapping. Taken 7 to 5 minutes before totality began. Light cloud and haze added the sky glow. Uranus is to the left at the 9 o’clock position as a blue star.
