Total Lunar Eclipse 8 October 2014.

We had to deal with strong winds coming into our faces.   Although the air temperature was about 15 C, it felt much colder. Initially, the penumbra was very hard to detect until just about 20 minutes before first umbral contact at 09:15 UTC.   The camera was better at detecting the penumbral shading than me.   The penumbra had a neutral color no more than 1/3 the width of the moon’s disk.   By 09:30, I could see red inside the umbra; I could detect a complete lunar disk at all times.

Totality occurred at 10:25 UTC and I needed to make as many images as possible because the moon was setting quickly and I wanted an image of it next to Uranus.   Uranus is the blue point in the images to the slight upper left of the moon 1.5 lunar diameters away.   At first, the umbra looked bright, but not as bright as seen during the 15 April total lunar eclipse.   The outer rim looked white to yellow and the inside was deep red.   I noticed that part of the umbra on the upper left of the moon, although deeper into the umbra, was as bright as the outer areas of the umbra.   I attribute the darker appearance to the eclipse being low in the sky.  

Dawn came quickly and the moon was very difficult to detect.   Mid-totality was at 10:55 and the moon was extremely faint and disappeared 16 minutes before moonset at 11:16.   

I have seen total lunar eclipses near the horizon in 1996 and 2007 and find it impossible to see the moon within about 3 degrees of the horizon because of atmospheric extinction.   I am aware of a phenomenon called the selenelion, which is when one can see the rising or setting sun and the full moon opposite the sun above the horizon at the same time.   I saw that once in Allen, Texas outside of a total lunar eclipse a year ago.   I would not expect to see the moon rising or setting during the daytime while in total eclipse.

Technical photo data:   Equipment:   Tamron 400/4 lens, Nikon D-700 camera.   HDR options and curves applied using Capture One, Version 8.   Images are described in this table:

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