This morning at 03:15 Eastern Standard Time we had a complete lunar eclipse, the first one on the winter solstice since 1638. The next one on a winter solstice will be on 2094-12-21, exactly 84 years from now. However, I did not find this eclipse much different from the ones I saw as a young child. The moon looked darker and less red than I remember, but it might be that I used to have better eyesight. We were lucky to have no cloud cover in Ormond Beach, Florida, and despite having only a 28-135mm lens on my Canon Rebel XTi I snapped a few pictures which aren’t very good, but are significant for me. I really need to invest in a tripod since it was hard to hand-hold for these. 3900×2600 became 238×238 pixels after cropping.
The photo below is at f/1.4, ISO 1600, 3.2″ exposure with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens when the moon was fully eclipsed. Normally, the moon would be so bright it would overpower the stars, but in the photo below you can see all the stars clearly (high-res version).
I don’t look up at the stars much, but I enjoyed this. Someday when we are mining the moon for Helium-3 to power our intergalactic spaceships, we will look back on the 2010 lunar eclipse as a memory of simpler and more oily times.