Watching the Blood Red Super Moon Lunar Eclipse from Seattle

From April 2014 through September 2015 we have had four total lunar eclipses, a rare sequence not seen since 2003 and not to be seen again until 2032. We will have total lunar eclipses before then, just not four in sequence.

September 27, 2015 brought the last of the current sequence in a pretty spectacular Super blood moon. The conditions were less than optimal from our point of view. We gathered in Magnusson Park along with lots of other people, walked up on Kite Hill and watched due East. Mount Rainier was getting some nice sunset light, covered in a pink glow from the refraction. I caught these photos with a Fuji X-T1 camera and Fuji's 55-200 mm variable aperture lens. I would have loved an 800mm F2.8 lens but that's not happening with Fuji, yet. Click on any image for a larger view.

Kids were running around playing and the sky was getting darker around 7:00 PM. Finally around 7:20 PM or so we could see the moon, already above the horizon of the Cascade mountains but shrouded in haze.

It was still pretty exciting, and as the Moon slowly made its way out of the haze it became much clearer. Because of the low light, telescopes weren't working very well, except the ones with large optics. We had a decent set of Canon binoculars though, but the Fuji camera was producing the clearest and brightest images for us to see.

The moon reached maximum eclipse about 7:47 PM PST, and finally around 8:02 PM it became much darker when the Moon had fully cleared the haze. While it was much easier to see all around the redness of the color was evident throughout the night. It was pretty awesome, and I'm glad to have witnessed the event with friends and family.