The morning of January 31, 2018 featured an lunar eclipse, which was also "blue" moon, which means it was a 2nd full moon in a single month, and also while the Moon was slightly closer in its orbit, which is often to referred to as a "super" Moon. While none of the events are particularly rare, the combination of them all were unusual.

Unfortunately from my location, the Moon entered the Earth's shadow at about the same time as it became daylight. If it had happened earlier in the night, the Moon would have became a dull reddish color from the light reaching it from the Earth, hence the "blood" moon references. The reddish color is caused by the blueish light being scattered by the Earth's atmosphere, while the red light makes it through. Similar to sunsets and sunrises on Earth having reddish tint to the light. Sometimes the reddish light is poetically described as all the sunsets on Earth.

The image is a collage culled from images taken 20 minutes apart. As the sky got lighter, and the Moon got closer to the horizon, the seeing conditions deteriorated, from imaging through more and more atmosphere.

  • Telescope: EDT 80mm Reftactor
  • Camera: ZWO 1600 MM