Last Saturday night there was a lunar eclipse. Surprisingly the sky cleared for the event, and from my window I watched the earth's shadow chomp away at the edge of the moon. We did make a trip out to view it more clearly, but lunar eclipses are a lengthy business for a cold night...

As the moon became a crescent for the first time in the night, we wandered over to Blackford Hill for a better look. Standing on top of the hill (with a bit of a chilly wind!), we shared the view with a good smattering of folk who had the same idea. An interesting atmosphere, silent in the dark of night but united by our appreciation of the event.

Soon the last bright sliver disappeared, and the eclipse entered its total phase. In place of the intense bright disc earlier in the night was a strange counterpart, subtly illuminated with a deep red light filtered through Earth's atmosphere.

Intriguing to watch, although I don't have the equipment or skills to capture it on film (or CCD!). I did watch dearg take a few shots of the partial phase, but in a wind which kept threatening to blow SLR and tripod right over there will have been too much motion for long exposures. The slightly spontaneous nature of the decision to take a camera may be reflected in one episode I observed. In the middle of picking up camera and tripod to move to a more sheltered looking location, there was a click as the camera took a shot. Apparently there had been a shot still to go with the camera's bracketing function, and dearg will have a nice long exposure of the sky, ground, and everything in between... On the other hand, there are some nice pictures from around the world in this gallery. The three pictures above are from flickr, by turfcutter, keithmarshall, and piscochile. The current Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice crisp composite shot. While I'm on the subject, it's worth a look at these pictures from the STEREO-B spacecraft of a transit of the moon in front of the sun from a couple of weeks ago.