Shooting the 2019 Super Blood Wolf Moon and Eclipse

The past two years Kentucky has been fortunate to witness two amazing celestial events. The full total eclipse of the sun last year (2017), and more recently the total lunar eclipse of the moon. Throw in the M46 comet and several meteor showers and you have full year of wonderful celestial magic.

Shooting the lunar eclipse known as the Super Blood Wolf Moon turned out to be filled with drama and exciting opportunity. For over a week leading up to the event the skies in Kentucky were overcast, cold, rainy, and generally miserable. The day leading up to the eclipse we received a couple inches of snow and the day of the eclipse started promisingly, but deteriorated into a gray white sky filled with a cold wind. By that evening, the sky was still cloudy, but about an hour or so before the eclipse was supposed to start, the skies began to clear, slowly at first with scattered remnants obscuring the moon. Just before the eclipse started, the clouds parted and the sky shined crystal clear with the Orion constellation hanging majestically in the southern sky and the full moon brilliantly riding almost overhead.

Over the next couple of hours I stepped outside to take few photographs, then came back inside to warm up, repeating the process until the last 20 minutes or so before totality occurred. That last 20 minutes I bundled up and braved the cold night air to watch in awe as the moon grew blood red across its entire face snapping images every minute or so.

Capturing images required some trial and error. I started off shooting in aperture priority at f/8 with an ISO of 100 allowing my shutter speed to drag along depending on the brightness of the moon. I ended up having to over compensate the exposure to allow for a short enough exposure to keep the image sharp. Before long, I had to change my tactics and shifted my exposure to a manual mode. This allowed me to shoot at f/6.3 and adjust my shutter accordingly to obtain the results I wanted. I shifted the ISO upwards to 1600 and began shooting around 1/4th of second alternating up or down to get different results. I also adjusted my camera into the Vivid mode which would enhance the blood red color effect.

As the moon approached totality, I was beginning to grow numb from the cold and decided to call it  a night. Certainly, the night was filled with magical celestial moments few take time to observe. The night sky is filled with wondrous visions and with the technology found within today's digital camera's almost anyone can capture those wonders. The Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse proved a highlight of the new season of observation.