The Super Moon (Blood Moon) during the Total Eclipse of the Moon. Total shadowing was 76 minutes.

The last time the Sun, Earth and Moon were aligned in the same axis was 152 ears ago in 1866! The next time this phenomenon will take place is in December 31st 2028.

Source: Straits Times

We have been fortunate to witness 3 extraordinary events occurring last January 31st 2018, when the Sun, Earth and the Moon were aligned as shown in diagram taken from the Straits Times. During this time, the Moon was shadowed by the Earth, and was illuminated by the Sun’s rays passing through Earth’s atmosphere. The moon took take on a red colour, a Blood Moon, and because of this rarity, it has been dubbed as a blue moon.  It also happened that the Moon was at it’s closest distance to Earth, and appeared 14% larger than usual, and hence the term, “ a Supermoon”. The partial eclipse began at about 7.48 pm. As the Earth’s inner shadow moved west, the sunlight on the moon was gradually blocked off, and the moon appeared from grey to a sunset red. The total shadowing lasted about 76 minutes till it ended at 10.08 pm; and as the Earth moved on, there appeared a partial eclipse of the moon again till the Moon was fully illuminated at 11.11pm.
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I was not able to view the first half of this rare phenomenon as the sky was heavily overcast with clouds. But just before the shadow of the Sun began to move westward off the Moon, the skies cleared  and I was able to photograph the partial eclipse (second half) during this time, although there were clouds floating by intermittently.

Stages of the Earth’s shadow moving away (west) from the Moon.

As more light was available, the Moon surface became more visible, in colour.

Towards the end of the eclipse, the Moon was so bright, that it appeared  grey.

The final phases.

The following night on February 1st 2018, the skies were very clear, and I took this opportunity to photograph the Supermoon. Due to it’s closeness, clarity of the sky,  the craters on the moon were visible using a 600mm lens and cropping.

A close-up of the previous picture, done by cropping the picture. Shows more clearly the craters of the moon.

Details: 600mm; ISO125; f/14; 1/125 sec; Auto white balance. Cropped.