Traveler’s Blog, Supplemental: Super-Moon Total Lunar Eclipse
As I’m sure y’all know, the night of September 27 was when the Moon moved into Earth’s shadow to provide us lucky folks with a total lunar eclipse. Some interesting facts about the eclipse can be found here. Eve, Rick and I were fortunate enough to be on a sandbar at Anderson Bottom on the Green River that night. Even better, the river turns there to flow northeast, meaning we had about as unobstructed a view of the moon as anywhere on the river. Had we been at any of our other campsites on the trip, the Moon would have been much higher in the sky, and therefore further into the eclipse, before becoming visible over the canyon rim. As it was, the Moon was about half-obscured when it rose.
Moonrise over the canyon wall
Over the course of the next couple (2? 3? I don’t really know how long we stayed up) of hours, I took the occasional photo with my super-duper, fancy-schmancy, hifalutin Sony Cyber-shot point-and-shoot camera. I was VERY pleasantly surprised to see how well it did with the little bit of light available – none of the pictures here are timed-exposures.
[Note: photos that are almost all black don’t take very long to upload. :-)]
This next one is *almost* totally black, but you can just see the lower right edge of the Moon. Although it got a little dimmer, we could still see it with our eyes, but beyond this point I couldn’t find it on the camera’s screen until it started coming out of totality.
Which it eventually did:
While we watched the eclipse, I also played around with fire photos. I think this one turned out rather well.
The other benefit to the eclipse was that we got to see the Milky Way the same night! In all my past trips, it has worked out so that we were on the river either at the full Moon or the new Moon. Both are gorgeous, of course, but that actually factored into our decision on when to make the trip – did we want to see the Milky Way or the Full Moon? This time, getting to see both on the same night was like being on two River trips at the same time! (Regrettably, my super-duper, fancy-schmancy, hifalutin Sony Cyber-shot point-and-shoot camera doesn’t do too well taking pictures of stars, at least not with the point-and-shoot option. I *think* it’ll take timed exposures, but I’ve not yet explored that possibility. I really should… I even took a mini-tripod with me for that purpose, but never used it.)
Seeing the eclipse was a rare treat. Seeing out where there isn’t any manmade light was even better! Seeing it with family was the best!!!
The Peripatetic Traveler 
Awesome pics, dad!!!
Thank you!
We also had a fire when watching the eclipse! We were on top of a mountain and watched the spectacular viewing! Great shots. I too also had so much fun taking pictures of this fabulous event!