Last night’s beautiful lunar eclipse – the first one occurring on the winter solstice in 426 years! – had the Moon at one point tinted a coppery-red and floating in the night sky amongst the stars…it almost felt like you could reach up and pluck it from the sky! It was wonderfully surreal.

Without a hefty zoom lens on my camera, I tried to get more of a shot showing its color and placement in the sky, since I knew there’d be thousands of other photographers out with better gear than me getting some nice close-ups. This was one of my favorites from the evening.

I love things like this because they get the general public – myself included – excited about astronomy, being a visible event that happens in real-time, if not at particularly convenient times! [yawn] Several people came outside as I was taking pictures and looked up in amazement…they had heard “something” was happening but were really surprised to see it for themselves. But then again, so was I. 🙂

Now that’s amore.

Image © Jason Major