Lunar Eclipse - Super Blood Full Moon

This is one last rather long look at the Super Blood Wolf Moon Lunar Eclipse of January 20-21, 2019, seen from the Rocket Garden at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. When I say a long look, I definitely mean long: 3 and a half hours long, all captured on 35mm film...in a single exposure. Quite simply, film is not dead. This is referred to as a "q-tip streak" and I shot it with a Canon Elan 7 film camera and a Rokinon 14mm lens on Fuji Velvia 50 transparency (slide) film. It's probably one of the easiest shots I've ever captured, as I set the camera on a tripod and simply opened the shutter at 10:25 pm (ET) on January 20 (eight minutes before the partial eclipse began) and I closed the shutter at 1:55 am on January 21 (three minutes or so after the partial eclipse ended). The Moon is definitely the main attraction, but the shot also captured a number of other bright stars, including Canopus, Sirius (the brightest streak), Rigel, Betelgeuse (the reddish streak) and Canis Minor as they marched across the sky. Huge thanks, again, to the always-great Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for hosting me, John Kraus and Marcus Cote that evening. Kenna Pell was the most gracious host imaginable, without whom this shot (and our shots) would not be possible. Details: ISO50, f16 and 3.5 hours exposure time, shot with a Canon Elan 7 body with a Rokinon 14mm lens. I was concerned the entirely eclipsed Moon would be indiscernible, so I briefly considered adjusting the aperture during totality in order to bring out the red. I even covered the lens, and turned the (manual) aperture dial to f8, but decided to stick with one setting for the entire duration. I mention this because I think that's what caused the small black curve in the red portion of the lunar streak, as well as in the Sirus streak, the lens being covered for a few moments.

Lunar Eclipse 2019

More Super Epic Happy Fun Ball Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse: Yet another sequence. For the Lunar Eclipse of January 20-21, 2019, I did bring a 500mm lens and grabbed a close-up every 5-minutes or so. I've been putting off the requisite (and now tardy) sequence of shots showing progression. Also, I'm limited to just one side of the eclipse, the pre-totality sequence: I roamed around the Rocket Garden during totality, and afterward I was too cold and tired to shoot the Moon on the other side of totality. (I didn't bring a tracking mount.) So, in the interest of not letting these shots go to waste and doing something perhaps a little different, I present this image: A sequence using one of the rocket photos (with the eclipsed Moon above it) as a background. Because I shot the rocket+Moon at 70mm, for the sake of uniformity, I ended up down-sizing each of the 500mm sequence shots. The first shot was taken at 10:33 pm (ET) as the partial eclipse began, and the 4th from the bottom was captured at 11:35 pm. The next one (3rd from bottom, hello red) was taken at 11:41 pm, the beginning of totality, and the 2nd from the bottom was taken at 11:46 pm. The last Moon image (directly above the rocket) was taken at 12:05 am, roughly 6 minutes before "maximum eclipse." However, it is the brightest here because I was able to shoot under the rocket using a .6 second exposure (vs. ISO5000 and 1/40 sec or so with the 500mm; it was too windy, and my gimbal was too unstable for longer exposures). The rocket in the foreground is a Juno II rocket, located in the Rocket Garden at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. According to the KSCVC website, "Pioneer IV was the last mission on a Juno II rocket. Before the Apollo Program, it was sent toward the Moon in 1959 to capture images. While it flew too far away from the Moon, it did capture data on space objects and radiation. It's research also paved the way for the 33 uncrewed American missions to the Moon, which were carried by more powerful rockets." TL;DR: I didn't know what to do with my lunar eclipse sequence, so here it is over a rocket that launched stuff to photograph the Moon.

Lunar Eclipse - Super Blood Full Moon

More eclipse, aka The Super Blood Wolf Full We Need To Give It More Names For Even More Hype Moon: This is the Lunar Eclipse of January 20-21, 2019 at 12:12am, or "maximum eclipse," seen from the Rocket Garden at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Appearing to be pointed directly at the Blood Red Moon is an Atlas-Agena rocket. The Atlas-Agena was active from 1960 to 1978, flying 109 missions and two are of note relative to this photo: the Ranger and Lunar Orbiter unmanned probes to the Moon were launched atop the Atlas-Agena. The stars were really that visible during totality, and the Moon was really that red. Quite simply, it was spectacular, almost surreal. Also, even though this was during totality, the Moon was not uniformly dark/red. The top is indeed brighter; Hap Griffin posted something yesterday explaining why. I won't attempt to summarize it here, but it's cool. My thanks, again, to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex for hosting a small group to document the eclipse from the Rocket Garden, and to Kenna Pell for being such a gracious host, in less than favorable conditions. (It was very late and very cold.) Details: Although the temptation was certainly great to do this as a composite (to better expose the rocket and to keep it in focus), this is a single image, shot at ISO3200, f4 and 1.3 seconds at 70mm with a Canon 7D2 (crop sensor).

Total Lunar Eclipse Sequence

The total lunar eclipse, seen with a few friends: Gemini-Titan, Atlas-Agena, Mercury-Atlas, Mercury-Redstone, Juno I, Delta, Juno II & the Saturn 1B rockets at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex rocket garden. Big thanks to KSCVC and the always-great Kenna Pell for hosting me, John Kraus and Marcus Cote for the really epic show tonight. More shots to follow, probably tomorrow. (Pic: me aka Michael Seeley)