Oct. 4, 2015 - Lunar Eclipse

Last Sunday evening, September 27, a rare supermoon total eclipse occurred. Our moon travels in an elliptical orbit so its distance from Earth varies. On Sunday, the moon was as close as it gets to the Earth. Because of that, it looks larger than normal and is called a supermoon. It just so happened that we also had a lunar eclipse on September 27. I took this photo of the full moon at 7:47 P.M. before the eclipse had started.

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Here’s how it looked at 8:27.

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At 9:05, only a sliver of the moon was visible.

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At 9:15, the total eclipse had started.

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This was taken at 9:47 when the eclipse was at its maximum.

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At 10:35, a sliver of the moon was now showing on the left side.

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At 11:07, more than half the moon was again visible.

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Only a small shadow was still visible at 11:29

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Here’s a composite photo showing the various stages of the supermoon eclipse. I was at our apartment in Shoreview, MN, that night and we were fortunate to have clear skies with only a few wispy clouds toward the end of the eclipse.

MoonTotalEclipseandSupermoonShoreview20150927composite