Sunday, September 27, 2015
Tonight's lunar eclipse of the harvest "supermoon" (the harvest moon being the 1st full moon after the fall equinox, and the "supermoon" being a full moon when it's closest to the Earth in its orbit and thus appears slightly larger than usual) was a common topic on the radio over the last two days. If I were more ambitious (and less tired and sore) I'd drive over to the bike path where it's a bit darker to take a look. As it stands, I'm settling for walking over to nearby Ridgefield Park before and during the eclipse to take a look and a few photos, despite having to put up with the Albany lights.
BEFORE:
A nice bright full moon... unfortunately, the only big patch of clouds in the sky is right around the moon. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll drift away before the eclipse hits totality.
DURING:
Cool... the clouds moved off. I got back to the park about 20 minutes after the eclipse started, and found several groups of people there watching the show, as well as groups out on the sidewalk and upstairs porches along the way. Guess people are interested in this... unfortunately, night shots are always iffy, and this batch didn't come out as good as the earlier ones.
In about another 40 minutes the moon should be completely in the Earth's shadow...
When I went back out 30 minutes later the moon was mostly eclipsed, with just a sliver still lit.
And after half an hour - the eclipse is darn near total, and I've have enough. Time to go home and go to bed (since the moon won't start coming out of the Earth's shadow for another hour or so... too late for me to stay up and watch tonight!)
