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Lunar Eclipse, March 2025

The Earth has a circular shadow extending out behind it in space. Usually you can't see any sign of this shadow, but it becomes visible when the moon passes through it. Here, two exposures during the partial phases of this morning's eclipse show the outline of the shadow. (The moon passed above the center of the shadow in this eclipse, so the shadow is a large circle that extends below the bottom of this picture.)

A much longer exposure during the middle of the eclipse reveals that the dark shadow isn't completely black—it's deep red, and darker towards the center of the shadow. The color is the result of sunlight sneaking around the edge of the Earth, refracted by the Earth's atmosphere and red for the same reason sunsets are red. If you were standing on the moon looking up at the Earth during the eclipse, you would see the "new Earth" as a bright red ring: the horizons of all the dawns & dusks happening on the planet, all seen at once. The top of the eclipsed moon is brighter because from there, near the perimeter of the shadow, the sun is just barely below the edge of the Earth as seen from the moon.

Click the picture above for more photos of the eclipse.

I had planned on setting up a tracking mount and taking a timed series of exposures of the eclipse, but the sky that night was overcast. Spotting the moon through occasional thin patches in the clouds, I couldn't resist snapping a few handheld shots with a telephoto lens . . . then finally gave in, put the camera on a fixed tripod, and sat around waiting for the clouds to thin out enough to quickly take a picture or two. I had a lucky break mid-eclipse and was able to shoot a half-dozen frames with minimal cloud cover. Amazingly, despite the almost completely overcast night, I was able to get the shots I needed to assemble this composite picture. Sometimes, the important thing is just to show up for the gig.

A nearly-total lunar eclipse will be visible from Massachusetts in August 2026, but we won't see another total lunar eclipse until June 2029, when the moon will pass almost directly through the center of the Earth's shadow.

Full disclosure: Though this is an accurate depiction of the Earth's shadow, it's an idealized representation of what's actually seen during an eclipse: it's what you would see if the Earth weren't rotating. Click here to see the longer story: Eclipse Reality.

Moon Shots

A few recent moon pictures: a partial lunar eclipse from last September, the moon and Venus from early January, and the moon occulting Mars from mid-January. Click the image above to see the pictures, and click the picture captions to read the narrative for each shot.

Red-shouldered Hawk

This hawk was spotted on power lines outside a window in the apartment above me. My upstairs neighbor said her cat, who was initially making ooh-I-see-a-bird noises, suddenly started making noises of a different sort. Maybe when the hawk looked him in the eye and mentally licked his chops...

Chalk Art 2024

Twenty screevers gathered in Northampton last Friday for the town’s 14th annual Chalk Art Festival. Click the Halloween cat above (by Gabriela Sepulveda Ortiz) to see the artists at work and their finished creations.

Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS

I caught a brief glimpse of comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS (pronounced "Choo-cheen-SHAHN") setting between trees on Saturday, but it was overcast all day Sunday and Monday. However, by Monday evening the clouds blew away and I got a great view of the comet from up the hill at Valley View Farm. The photo above is from Tuesday night, the comet setting among greenish streaks of airglow. Click the picture for more shots. The comet's long tail can be seen with the naked eye, though not as spectacularly as in photos. Tsuchinshan will be visible all this week and beyond, getting fainter but rising up higher in the sky. Just look to the west as it gets dark after sunset. You don't need a telescope, but binoculars will help you see the comet more clearly.

Juvenile Hooded Mergansers

Out on a walk, I spotted a Great Egret in the river below the Brassworks dam. I hurried home and returned with a camera, but alas the egret was gone. I looked for it in the pond above the dam and noticed two ducks that didn't seem to be the usual (Common) Mergansers or Mallards. As I photographed them, I realized they were probably young Hooded Mergansers, judging by the early bulges on the back of their heads. Back home, an internet search confirmed this. These two may well be offspring from the two adult Hooded Mergansers I photographed in the same place back in February (see below). Click the picture above for more shots.