Capturing the blood moon (the first of 4 lunar eclipses visible in North America over the next 17 months) was almost perfect.
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Camping spot picked out at Ryan Campground. Check!
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Makings for s’mores. Check!
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Firewood. Check!
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Lighter & Matches. Check!
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Camera Gear! Check!
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Jackets. Check!
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Truck gassed up. Check!
My son and I made plans to camp out last night at Ryan Campground in Joshua Tree National Park to experience the blood moon. We got to our campsite just after sundown. Unloaded the firewood and got a fire going to keep us warm throughout the night. No tent or sleeping bags for us because we were going to stay up all night.
Next I lugged out my gear and got it set up to capture the nights spectacular showing of the blood moon. The park is absolutely gorgeous by the light of a full moon. Sadly I did not capture an images of that. Which is probably a good thing. (You soon see why). Though I did capture this image which my son has called “blue cheese”. I was showing him how placing a colored filter in front of my lens would look.
We still had a few hours still the beginning of the show so we decided to roast some marshmallows and enjoy some s’mores and enjoy each others company. Just the typical mother son stuff, legos, robots and minecraft topics. And then there was silence and soon my son was bored and decided to go lay down in the truck and take a nap.
Ten minutes after 11 is when it all started. The eclipse and my camera telling me I was almost out of juice. The one thing I didn’t do was top off the charge on my camera batteries. I didn’t think the evening temps of 60ish would be an issue but I guess it was. Batteries don’t like being cold. Thankfully I always carry a charger in my camera bag and I have an inverter in my vehicle. And so I took a battery out to charge and left one in so I could still take a few pictures.
The eclipse was so going so I took the other battery out for a little bit to keep in warm in my pocket. Got totally sidetracked, went to re-align my camera and the battery case feel out, hit the ground and broke. Wonderful! Fortunately it did not render my camera totally useless so I was still able to keep photographing the blood moon.
I’m gonna have to use some electrical tape from now on to keep the battery case in place until I can afford the upgrade I am desperately in need of.
Did you see the Blood Moon? Let me know and I would love to see your images too if you captured any.
P.S. Now that I’ve had some sleep, I’ve had a chance to be creative and created this composite image of the blood moon.
