Stellenbosch was heavily clouded over, with rain now and then. There were moments of clarity but these faded, in the words of Pink Floyd, as charity does.

The sequence below, taken through varying degrees of thin cloud, shows the Moon approaching totality, which occurred at 01:21, by which time it was raining again.

HD 94765 (V=7.4) was occulted by the Moon shortly after the photo below was taken; it disappeared and reappeared again while the Moon was totally eclipsed. There were several occultations happening during the eclipse, and I was looking forward to photographing them, including captuing the reappearance of minor planet (16) Psyche at 00:39 from behind the Moon. Oh well.

The images below, taken after midnight, show clouds enveloping the Moon. Note the soft red tinge the clouds have, caused by moonlight refracted by ice crystals.

2007 March 04, 00:02 SAST, Stellenbosch.
Canon PowerShot S3 IS, fl=276mm @ f/3.5, 0.25sec @ ISO 200

2007 March 04, 02:57 SAST, Stellenbosch.
Canon PowerShot S3 IS, fl=206mm @ f/3.5, 0.6sec @ ISO 100

2007 March 04, 03:03 SAST, Stellenbosch.
Canon PowerShot S3 IS, fl=160mm @ f/3.5, 0.4sec @ ISO 100

These two images, taken around 02:43, show the difference in brightness of the eclipsed and uneclipsed lunar surface. Both images were taken with a 430mm lens, f/3.5 at ISO 80. The left image was exposed for 1/500th of a second, while the right-hand one needed 0.6 seconds to bring out the colour and detail of the eclipsed Moon – some 300 times longer. Yet with the human eye, detail on both eclipsed and uneclipsed surfaces can be seen at the same time.

Keywords: Astronomy, astrophotography, Moon, total lunar eclipse, cloud, rain, halo

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