On September 27, 2015 at dusk, we observed the full moon rising over the Cascade mountains when it was already in eclipse. At first it was difficult to see as the sky was not very dark yet. Then gradually as the moon rose and the sky darkened, the dark red orb became more apparent. As the moon moved through the Earth’s umbra shadow, patterns of brightness changed until it finally emerged as our familiar bright full moon.
If you were standing on the surface of the moon during this eclipse, you would see the Earth blocking the sun, and surrounded by a ring of red-orange light. In essence you would be seeing all the sunrises and sunsets of planet Earth at one time. The center of the Earth’s shadow is toward the upper right in this photo and the lower left is not as deep in shadow.This is a “phase” of the moon you will never during a typical month — a bite taken out of the full moon as the moon emerges from the Earth’s shadow or umbra. These images were taken with a Canon 6D DSLR camera with an f/4 300mm fixed lens on a tripod.
