Full moon to Blood moon in Australia

[PhotoByTrace]

So I was fortunate enough to be blessed with clear skies last night to capture the Lunar Eclipse here in Townsville. I made captures every 5 minutes from 6:30pm from full moon as the penumbral eclipse began through to 9pm at maximum eclipse and a lovely blood moon. I then blended some of these together for the following composites.

Composite 1- 7 moon images all shot at 200mm f/8 ISO200 on a crop body; various shutter times.


Composite 2- 9 moon images all shot at 200mm f/8 ISO200 on a crop body; various shutter times.


Composite 3- Surreal composite
The 8 moon images were taken at 200mm. These have been set against a long exposure twilight image of the rock pool on The Strand in Townsville, Queensland taken at 16mm. This was mostly an exercise of practicing blending and transformations. It is not meant to reflect reality as at 16mm the moon was really just a bright spot in the distance It was another way to present the composite with the setting and location in which it was captured.


C&C and questions are welcomed.

[IzzieK]

Here in Missouri ours started at 4:15am...just as I was about to go to bed and promised my husband I will wake up later on in half an hour...I fell asleep of course. so much for my ambition to delve in astrophotography... Anyway, I was hoping you and some others will upload something like this or even just the whole blood moon. Thank you for not disappointing me. The next one will be on April 15...hopefully I am still alive by then...lucky you! envious...

[Shadowman]

Nice effort.

[Donald]

They are phenomenal. Wonderful creative and artistic visaion to think of making images like this and impressive technical ability to do so.

[Doorstop]

It is absolutely stunning! I love it!

[Slipper]

That is a unique treatment, love it. #3 Looks very artistic.

[PhotoByTrace]

Thanks all for the positive comments. Much appreciated.
It was a lovely evening watching the eclipse unfold, and it was wonderful that the weather stayed clear. I was actually quite surprised by how many stars became visible during the total eclipse. I may try to get myself to a dark sky location for next April, though that is still a bit close to monsoon season, so less likely to have a cooperative sky.

[ajsmith]

Those are gorgeous!

[Suzan J]

Hello Trace: This is a lovely and creative way to capture the blood moon. I particularly like the composition of the arc in Number 2.

[deetheturk]

Wonderful images Trace, thank's for sharing

David

[bnnrcn]

Very creative images, congrats

[NorthernFocus]

Really nicely done. Great technical execution and creativity to put together the composites. They are a bit perplexing being the reverse of the view from the northern hemisphere

[kaneohebud]

No. 3 is really well executed. Of course it doesn't represent reality, but who cares. It's a beautiful picture.

[PhotoByTrace]

Thanks again to everyone for your comments.
Dan, I struggle with the upside-down view whenever I look at Northern Hemisphere night photos too. When I first started trying to make sense of the night sky and work out where stars will be at different times and seasons I got myself in all sorts of knots as I had inadvertently mixed in some Northern Hemisphere resources. Took me a while to sort it out
And Bud, thank you; I'm glad you like it

[John 2]

Missed these. What a stunning idea and well executed.

[Stagecoach]

Very nicely done Trace. The composite works well

[FootLoose]

I especially like the 2nd shot, too Trace. Not your average moonshot.

The 3rd: if that were to scale, it really would be a 'super' moon.