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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Total Lunar Eclipse of April 15, 2014

Total Lunar Eclipse of April 15, 2014
Total Lunar Eclipse of April 15, 2014 I captured this composite image using my AT-130 refractor telescope at f/6 and a Canon 60Da DSLR camera. This is the first total lunar eclipse of 2014 and the first in a tetrad. Max J. Corneau

Although pop culture captured the religious furor over a tetrad of eclipses falling on holidays, I'm satisfied that this is really just another Lunar eclipse. By compositing each distinct phase of the eclipse into a single coherent image I attempt to bring to life the temporal arc of the event as the Moon passed in, through and out of Earth’s dark (umbral) shadow. The Totality phase of the April 14-15 eclipse lasted nearly 1.3 hours and it took about 3.5 hours for the Moon to completely sweep through the Earth’s dark shadow on the night of April 14-15.