A total lunar eclipse dazzled millions of sky-gazers around the world on September 27th, 2015, as a full “supermoon” crossed into the earth’s shadow and took on a blood-red hue. I made this picture of it with my 345mm long telephoto lens zoomed all the way out. The largest opening of this lens does not let much light into the camera at full zoom, and there was not much light to begin with. So I selected a very high ISO (sensitivity) rating of 6400, and slowed down my shutter speed to 1.9th of a second in order to make this image. I also pressed my camera tightly against a wall of a nearby garden to minimize blurring due to camera shake. I include a palm tree to the left of the moon to offer both an idea of the moon’s scale and my location. This once-in-a-lifetime sight will always remain in my memory, and this photograph will always be there for me to verify it.

(The narrow streets of Mission Beach were full of eclipse-viewers, and nearly all of them were trying to make a picture of this blood-red moon using their cellphone cameras. Most of them voiced disappointment over their results, largely because their cellphone cameras lacked the necessary telephoto optics. The moon was barely visible in their pictures. A lucky few were also carrying telescopes on tripods to view the event, and they could easily have placed their cellphone camera lenses against the telescope’s eye-piece to make large, clear images of the eclipse.)