On May 15, 2003, there was a total lunar eclipse in the western hemisphere. At the west coast, the moon was to rise above the horizon partially eclipsed. With great hopes of making some beautiful photographs of the moon, I decided to shoot it from the north side of Golden Gate Bridge. I was hoping to make an image of a large, orangish, partially eclipsed moon rising over the city of San Francisco with Golden Gate Bridge spanning across the bottom of the image. So, with eager anticipation, I drove up with a friend to the bridge well before moon rise. When we arrived at the viewpoint, we found ourselves among several dozen viewers, including a dozen other photographers with their tripods all set up.

Weather forecasts called for clear skies (great!) with some fog along the coast (not so great). Though the sky was clear and there was no hint of fog near where we were, the city of San Francisco was overcast with a thick layer of haze (air pollution?). Hoping that the moon will still show through the haze, we set up our equipment and waited. 7:45PM (moon rise time) came and went. 30 mins later and we still see any hint of the moon. It wasn't until an hour after moon rise did we see any hint of the moon. Well above the city of San Francisco and barely discernible through the thick haze. Apparently the thick haze prevented us from seeing the beautiful moon rise from the outset.

I had hoped to catch the moon low in the horizon while it was very large. So, I had brought with me only the Canon 70-200mm and the 1.4x extender. But since the moon was not visible well after it had risen high up, my 70-200mm + 1.4x setup was not long enough to capture the moon any larger than shown above. The large image of the moon at the top is a 50% crop from a borrowed 100-400mm + 1.4x.

Even though all of us at the viewpoint had missed the moonrise, we did get to see the moon change its colors and get brighter as it peered through the eclipse of the earth. All of these images were shot in RAW mode and in AWB (auto white balance); no color corrections were made to these images.

As the moon rose higher and came out of the eclipse, it became brighter and brighter as it lit the land and sea below. As the night wore on, it got cold and windy at the viewpoint, but many spectators and photographers stayed through to the conclusion of the lunar eclipse.

It was wonderful to be out in the cold viewing a full moon in eclipse. Though my images didn't turn out as I had hoped, I still enjoyed shooting the event and with the images that I was able to capture.

Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape held a special workshop at Death Valley to capture the lunar eclipse in its grandeur. He's got couple of wonderful images available at his site.