Blood Moon, Lunar Eclipse, April 2014

Ok, who stayed up too late last night?

Let me start with, the regular moon was SO BRIGHT!  The moonlight was casting shadows, it was so bright.

Here's a long exposure, a few seconds really:

but it's the moon, see the stars?

So then I started playing and took some long exposures, then turned up the light

Here's The Big Dipper, which is all you can normally see, but hey, look at all those stars!

Looking west, toward Canopus

airplane

And I've seen a lot of blood moons.  The best was out on the balcony, listening to Dio singing, "Rainbow in the Dark."  And for the record, it was in this same location that I did, ONCE, see a genuine rainbow in the dark.  To be fair, it wasn't full dark, the sun was setting, but it WAS dark in that part of the sky.  So yeah, it was crazy looking and Ronnie James Dio was totally singing the truth.

 So there it is, the Blood Moon that I told myself I wasn't going to stay up and watch.  If you missed it, don't worry, this in no once-in-a-lifetime event.  You'll get another chance to see a lunar eclipse real soon now, actually.  We have 4 within the next 18 months; Oct. 8, 2014, April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015!