On the night of May 26th much of the western United States was graced with a very special celestial event: a total lunar eclipse, also sometimes called a Blood Moon since the normal white or gray moon becomes a ruddy red/orange color during totality. But this wasn’t just any ol’ lunar eclipse. Earth’s satellite reached its perigee (the closest point to Earth in the moons orbit) about nine hours prior to moonrise, making it appear larger than normal in the sky. This is known colloquially as a “Supermoon.” So of course this event was called the Super Blood Moon.
The forecast was for rain so mom and I knew we were going to have to get well out of the city if we had any hopes of seeing the eclipse. We consulted the map and checked several areas, but they all called for at least some clouds if not rain, until we found the winner: Maryhill, Washington in the Columbia River Gorge. But good weather is not all this little town has to offer… it also has a full-scale replica of Stonehenge located high upon a cliff overlooking Interstate 84.
Historical aside: The founder of Maryhill, Sam Hill began construction of what many Northwesterners now call “Fauxhenge” in 1918 as a monument to the fallen World War I soldiers who heralded from Klickitat County, and to remind the public of “the folly of war.” It was the first WWI monument erected in the United States. He eventually completed the construction in 1929. Sam Hill passed away two years later and his ashes were entombed just down the hill from his fabulous monument. You can read more about the Stonehenge Monument by following this link.
Back to the trip. We figured that Stonehenge would be a fitting foreground subject for a lunar eclipse, packed up Jerome the Motorhome with all the cameras, tripods and various implements of destruction we figured we’d need, and set out through the downpour for parts east. Sure enough the skies eventually cleared and before too long we were under clear blue. We got to Maryhill around 6pm, well before moonrise and long before the first of Earths umbral shadow would begin to take a bite out of the Moon at roughly 2:30am.
The sky was clear, but the winds were vicious. Over the next several hours while we waited the winds knocked Jerome around so much it was a little disconcerting. The winds were blowing so hard it was very difficult to fight the door open, and we were afraid to leave the cameras on the tripods. We mostly rode out the storm inside Jerome, drinking hot cocoa and prepping our equipment for the big event.
The winds died down around 1am and we ventured outside. The parking lot now had about 20 cars and maybe 50 people milling around. About 10-15 of those folks had cameras, the others were just there to watch the spectacle with what Elon Musk would call “biological optical imagers.” We started chatting with the ladies parked next to us, and pretty soon several other photographers came over to say hello and talk some shop. One of them showed us some very cool long exposure shots he had taken earlier in the year, standing on the alter swinging a burning ball of steel wool, so we decided to go in and gave it a try. Alas, all we had were SOS pads, and they do not work so well. The soap worked like a fire retardant. So instead we used several different strings of LED lights swinging them in different patterns and walking around. Some of those shots turned out really awesome.
Quickly enough the the hour approached the pivotal moment, and we all retreated to our selected locations to photograph the eclipse. Mom and I decided to stay inside the henge. My goal was to make a composite image showing the phases of the moon as it set over Stonehenge. I had a while before I really needed to get my foreground set, as the main image with the foreground needs to be shot during the totality, otherwise the shadows will not align and the overall lighting will be off. So I mostly focused on the close up shots of the moons I was going to use for the composite, using my D500 with the brandy new 200-500mm f/5.6. Honestly, I was a little disappointed in how most of those shots turned out. They were all a little fuzzy and I’m not sure why. I spoke with several other photographers out there that night, and everyone had the same problem. My theory is that it was because we were shooting over the river, which causes a heat distortion because the water is colder than the air moving over it, similar to to the ripples you see coming off a road on a hot day. For my purposes I didn’t think it would matter too much since the moon images were going to be so small in the frame. But I’ve gotten better images of the moon from the backyard in the middle of city, so that was a little disappointing.
For the wide angle shots I used my older D7100 with a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, and I wandered around a little bit with that setup trying to find the spot I liked best. I eventually settled on the first spot picked out, directly opposite the main alter and tallest standing stone.
About an hour before totality another photographer came and joined us inside. He brought with him a collection of LED pillar candles. He said he had used them before to add some nice orange light to the base of the standing stones, and asked if we minded if he put them out. We said we did not at all, and I’m sure glad that he did! The effect was awesome! Mom and I made a mental note that we needed to add some of those to our traveling photography kit.
Around 4:12am the moon entered as deeply into the Earths umbral shadow as it would on this pass. With the moon fully eclipsed, the night got very dark very fast… at least in the west. In the east the Sun was beginning to brighten the sky. The moon took on a the ruddy red color of the Blood Moon, with the upper right sliver remaining sliver/white where just a bit of the Suns light still reflected. Meanwhile the Sun continued to rise and began to turn the sky a light purple/blue and flushed the standing stones an orangy/pink. It was really quite beautiful and proved to make a very handsome photo in my opinion. Not exactly what I had been expecting to capture, but pretty neat nonetheless.
Alas all good things must come to an end, and that was about where our little adventure ended. The west coast of the US could not see the last half to third of the eclipse after totality because the moon was setting and would be below the horizon very soon. The majority of the crowd scooted around the western side of the monument to watch the last of the Blood Moon, now a fiery orange crescent, descend into the heavy cloud cover over Portland under the watchful gaze of Mount Hood.