The Big Eclipse Of 2008

Well, here they are, the pictures you've all been waiting for. This is a composite image of the total lunar eclipse of February 20, 2008. You're looking at about an hour and a half span of time here, from the newly-risen full moon at upper left to the completely eclipsed version at lower right. I had been excited about the opportunity to shoot an eclipse again for almost a month before yesterday, and then the day turned out to be terribly overcast. I had pretty much written the occasion off when, right after sundown, the clouds began to part. At first it was only sporadic gaps, but as it got later and later, it started to be more clear than cloudy. Some of these images were shot through those gaps in the clouds, but after a while it was all clear sailing, at least up to near the moment of totality. Before the last little bit of direct sunlight could slip off the side of the moon, big clouds rolled in. But they rolled on past and I was able to get a shot of the surface of the moon illuminated by all the world's sunsets after all. I didn't stay up and shoot the second half of the cosmic ballet since it's pretty much the reverse of what I had just seen. Plus I had an hour drive home since I didn't actually shoot this from anywhere near my house. Oddly enough, everyone I spoke to about the eclipse near where I live said they missed it completely because of the overcast. So I think I got really, really lucky.