Eclipsed Blue Moon
 
Thursday 31st December 2009

As the Full Moon rose above the horizon on the 31st December, it was the thirteenth of 2009. This is a rare occasion enough, though for a brief period, the shadow of Earth passed in front of it thus creating a partial eclipse. I wondered whether I would be able to photograph it, so put the camera on a tripod outside the front door, with a long lens aimed at the sky. I operated the camera fully manually, with ISO speed 200, aperture at f/7.1 and shutter speed 1/400 sec.

I processed the RAW to create the final result on the left. The right hand image is the same photograph with saturation turned up. The various colours indicate different rock types that comprise the surface of the Moon. The red across the bottom right hand corner is the glow of Earth's sunrises cast onto the Moon's surface. These sunrises would have been occurring across Japan.