Lunar Eclipse (January 21, 2019)

Lunar Eclipse, #5. Tibidabo, Barcelona, 2019

Tibidabo summit, in the hills above Barcelona, seemed to be the best spot for this morning’s eclipse, given that the Moon would be dropping away ever closer toward the western horizon during totality. Viewing sites in Barcelona proper would not do as the hills would eventually hide the Moon as it headed west.

So, uphill at oh-dark-thirty I went. (I am not an astro-photographer by any means, but I certainly like to witness any unusual event offered up by the Universe.)

I saw that some in the media are calling this the “Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse”. Wow! What a massively marvelous moniker! Why do they call it that? Well, “Super” because the Moon will be just about as close to the Earth as it can be (perigee), thus very slightly larger in the sky…”Blood” for the red color we all hope to see at near-totality/totality as the blue light gets scattered away by the Earth’s atmoshphere…and “Wolf” because, some Native American cultures apparently call the January Moon by this name.

The unvarnished truth? It’s all media bullshit-hype to get you to click on that eclipse headline–cooly calculated clickbait vocabulary, if you will.

So, what is it really? Well, just call it a “total lunar eclipse”–that’s good enough.

With temps in the mid-30s, a clear night sky, and a slight, but chilly, breeze from the north, I piled on the layers–and still froze during the 2-3 hours I was up there. Always dress warmer than you think necessary if you are going to be anchored next to a tripod for an extended period.

I was surprised that there were no groups up there to view the spectacle. Just one other photographer set up his tripod beside me–the rest of Barcelona seemed to be fast asleep. Only with the morning light coming on, and the eclipse long past, did I hear the first human sounds: first, a couple of hardy cyclists spinning there way up the road, then the increasing volume of darkly-determined commuters on the roads below (one per car, of course), finally chatty clots of energetic schoolkids walking to class.

I guess a lunar eclipse is a non-event for most.

Some images…

When I first arrived on scene, the eclipse was already well under way. This was shot at about 5:19a.m. local time, and the main eclipse (not the penumbral portion) had begun 46 minutes earlier at 4:33a.m. Note the difficulty of capturing both the highlights and shadows properly–way too much contrast for most sensors (even the D850) to handle well in a single image:

Lunar Eclipse, #2. Tibidabo, Barcelona, 2019

This is what things looked like at 7:11a.m., with official “totality” coming a minute later at 7:12a.m. I suppose this is the “blood Moon” that gets all the hype:

Lunar Eclipse, #4. Tibidabo, Barcelona, 2019

The “total” part of the eclipse ended at 6:43a.m. and the Moon began to emerge from Earth’s shadow, the light coming in from the top down:

Lunar Eclipse, #6. Tibidabo, Barcelona, 2019

This was shot at 7:28a.m., toward the end of the morning’s event (end of main eclipse event: 7:50a.m.), as the Moon regained it’s normal nearly-round shape and bright white color. In order to expose the light of the Moon properly, I lost all detail in the shadowed area of the disc:

Lunar Eclipse, #7. Tibidabo, Barcelona, 2019

With the eclipse over, and dawn gathering forces to the east over the city, it was time to aim the long lens elsewhere:

Dawn from Tibidabo, #3 (Torre Glòries, or Torre Agbar). Barcelona, 2019

Looking down at the port, I liked how the clouds almost mirrored the outlines of the structures below–well, except for the cloud “poodle” to the right. The strange line above the ship is the blurred track of an airliner on final approach to El Prat Airport:

Dawn from Tibidabo, #2. Barcelona, 2019

At the twin Olympic towers (Mapfre Building and Hotel Art), the clouds continued to rhyme (somewhat) with the human-made buildings:

Dawn from Tibidabo, #1. Barcelona, 2019

As the sun hit the clouds, a terrier raised it’s muzzle to the coming dawn (squint and use your imagination):

Sunrise, #2. Barcelona, 2019

Finally, another Mediterranean sunrise over the city. The hill in the middle is where you will find the Bunkers of Carmel, the site of an anti-aircraft battery during the Spanish Civil War:

Sunrise, #3. Barcelona, 2019