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It was a nice clear night in Connecticut for this beautiful eclipse of the Harvest Moon. This sequence of images began at 8:30 pm EDT and ended at 12:45 am. The first row shows the Earth's shadow traveling across the Moon during the first part of the eclipse. The second and third images show the penumbra on the upper left side of the Moon. This is the lighter shadow that occurs when the Earth is only partially blocking the Sun's disk.

The second row shows various portions of totality, taken with much longer exposures to capture the much dimmer light. As you would expect, the Moon was darkest in the middle of totality, when it was in the deepest part of the Earth's shadow.

The third row shows the Earth's shadow leaving the Moon at the end of the eclipse. The last two images show the penumbra on the right side of the Moon.

Image details: Exposures ranging from 1/500 to 10 seconds at ISO 1600 with a Canon 400D camera with a 500-mm lens.

September 2015