AmazingSky

09/01/2026

Here is my report on my recent "expedition" to view the second eclipse of August, the deep partial eclipse of the Moon. Success! Illustrated with photos and charts, and a look ahead to future lunar eclipses. It's a drought for us! Glad I got this one!

August 2026 featured remarkable eclipse events, including a total solar eclipse in Spain on August 12 and a significant partial lunar eclipse on August 27. The author traveled to Waterton Lakes Nat…

09/01/2026

This is a composite of photos illustrating the actual passage of the Full Moon through the northern portion of Earth's umbral shadow on August 27, 2026.

This was not a total eclipse. At mid-eclipse at centre (at about 10:15 pm MDT) about 96% of the Moon's disk was in the umbra. The 4% still lit directly by the Sun remained bright white, looking like a "polar cap" at the top of the Moon's reddened disk. The southern, or bottom, portion of the disk was deepest into the umbra and so was darkest and reddest.

The four flanking images show the progress of the Moon through the shadow due to the Moon's orbital motion around Earth. The sequence runs from right to left, as the Moon moved west to east through the shadow and against the background stars of Aquarius. In doing so the Moon "draws" the circular shape of the Earth's umbra, which at the Moon's distance is about three times the diameter of the Moon.

The images for each Moon were taken about 30 minutes apart, so the sequence covers about 2 hours. I oriented the camera and rotated the framing so celestial north is up, as per most diagrams of eclipses and the shadow boundaries.

The earlier moons at right look yellower due to the Moon's lower altitude in the east – from my locaation the eclipse was in progress at moonrise, and the Moon climbed higher as the eclipse progressed.

I processed each Moon to best preserve the high dynamic range in brightness between the bright and dark portions of the lunar disk, to present the images more as the eye saw the Moon in the eyepiece, and to show both parts of the Moon: the bright sunlit portion and dark red umbral shadow area.

The Moon was in the star-poor constellation of Aquarius this night, but the longest exposure used at mid-eclipse did pick up many background stars. The brightest at lower left is 4.8 magnitude Sigma Aquarii, which was obvious near the Moon in the eyepiece of the wide-field telescope I had also set up beside the photo rig, just for visual looks.

I shot this from the Maskinonge wetlands viewpoint in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta on what turned out to be a very clear night. I chose the site for its potential for a wide-angle nightscape with the foreground and Milky Way, yet also being able to set up a full telescope rig beside the car for close-up shots like this. Being Waterton, there was some wind this night, but it did not affect these images.

Technical:
This is a composite of 5 sets of images, each set a blend of 7 exposures, in an auto-bracketed sequence at 1-stop intervals from short for the bright portion, to long for the umbra, with the exposure range varying throughout — for example the longest exposure in each set ranged from 1/4-second to 8 seconds. The stars come from the longest 8-second exposure in the mid-eclipse image set.

All were with the Canon R5 at ISO 100, on the Askar APO120 refractor at its native f/7 for 840mm focal length. It was on my venerable "eclipse" mount, the Astro-Physics AP400 tracking at the lunar rate. The AP400 has been to many solar and lunar eclipses.

Exposures in each set were blended with Lights1 luminosity masks created with the Lumenzia extension panel in Photoshop, with adjustments to the masks' feathering to smooth the blends. The flanking images were masked to put them "behind" the central mid-eclipse image.

Each set was shot with the Moon more or less centred in the frame. I placed each Moon manually using a background sky chart image from StarryNight software showing the shadow outlines and stars to aid accurate positioning.

08/30/2026

Here are more views and variations of the lunar eclipse last Thursday, August 27, in wide and telescopic shots taken as the eclipsed Moon rose in the east, from the Maskinonge viewpoint in Waterton Lakes. These weren't shots I had planned to take, but the scenes were striking and well worth shooting. Details are in the individual photo descriptions.

08/29/2026

This is a 180º panorama taking in the red eclipsed Moon, at left, and the Milky Way and galactic core, at right, over the Maskinonge wetlands in Waterton Lakes National Park, in southwest Alberta. This was the partial lunar eclipse (it was almost total!) of August 27, 2026, taken in the minutes around and following mid-eclipse at about 10:15 pm MDT when the Moon was darkest.

The Moon was 96% within the dark red umbral shadow of the Earth this night, so a portion of the Moon at the top of the disk (its northern limb) remained outside the umbra and white, adding the bright glow above the Moon. That remaining moonlight, as diminished as it was, adds the glitter path on the pond below.

At right, the galactic core in Sagittarius and Scorpius is above Vimy Peak and the Waterton townsite hidden in the distance but marked by the glow. The Moon was in Aquarius at this eclipse. Saturn is rising at far left. Between the Moon and the Milky Way are the stars of Capricornus.

During the eclipse the sky darkened enough to reveal the Milky Way on this clear night in the mountains, with some lingering smoke in the air muting contrast somewhat. Even so, some of the red nebulas in and around the Milky Way show up.

Technical:
This is a blend of two panoramas of 5 segments each, at 30º spacings:
- the first for the ground, untracked,
- and the second taken immediately afterwards, tracked for the sky. The camera was on the MSM Nomad tracker.

All exposures for both ground and sky were 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 24mm, on the astro-modified Canon R at ISO 6400, much higher than I would normally use. But wind was buffeting the tripod so I opted to keep exposures short, plus I had to work quickly before the Moon emerged too much more from the umbral shadow and lit up the sky. However, AI noise reduction did clean up the noise very well. I stitched the panoramas in Camera Raw and blended and masked them in Photoshop.

The Moon comes from a blend of 8 tracked exposures with the same lens and focal length (so the Moon is the correct size) taken after the pan segments. The Moon exposures were 1 stop apart from 10 seconds to 1/13 second, to retain the red disk and portray the scene more as the eye could see it with both the Moon and Milky Way, but that the camera cannot record in a single exposure. Moon exposures blended in with masks for the highlights, ad hoc adjusted for feathering to smooth the blending.

The original is 14,000 pixels wide.

08/29/2026

This is the 96% partial lunar eclipse of August 27, 2026 just after mid-eclipse with the Moon most deeply immersed in the Earth's umbral shadow. The north polar area of the Moon remained outside the umbra at top for a bright "polar cap" on the Moon's reddened disk. The southern, or bottom, portion of the Moon's disk was deepest into the umbra and so was darkest and reddest.

I processed this set of images to best preserve the high dynamic range in brightness between the bright and dark portions of the Moon, to present the image more as the eye saw it in the eyepiece, complete with range of colours such as the bluish-grey band between the red southern part of the disk and the bright whiter north polar area.

The Moon was in the star-poor constellation of Aquarius this night, but the longest exposure did pick up many background stars. The brightest at lower left is 4.8 magnitude Sigma Aquarii, which was obvious near the Moon in the eyepiece of the wide-field telescope I had also set up beside the photo rig, just for visual looks.

I shot this from the Maskinonge wetlands viewpoint in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta on what turned out to be a very clear night, though with some lingering smoke in the air. I chose the site for its potential for a wide-angle nightscape with the foreground and Milky Way, yet also being able to set up a full scope rig beside the car. Being Waterton, there was some wind this night but it did not affect these images.

Technical:
This is a blend of 7 exposures, in an auto-bracketed set at 1-stop intervals from 1/8-second to 8-seconds with the Canon R5 at ISO 100, on the Askar APO120 refractor at its native f/7 for 840mm focal length.

It was on my venerable "eclipse" mount, the Astro-Physics AP400 tracking at the lunar rate. The AP400 has been to many solar and lunar eclipses.

Exposures were blended with Lights1 luminosity masks created with the Lumenzia extension panel in Photoshop, with adjustments to the masks' feathering to smooth the blends. A median filter was applied to the longest exposure to eliminate hot pixels on this warm summer night. This was certainly the warmest and most comfortable lunar eclipse I had been to in many years!

08/26/2026

Two weeks ago we were here in Spain instructing a tour group from Capture The Atlas. Fellow eclipse chaser Mike Shaw captures the experience very well with a 360° camera. Enjoy! 😊

Watch the shadow of the moon sweep across the sky in this immersive...

08/25/2026

Here's my blog post about the August 27 eclipse of the Moon, written for SkySafari. This is the last major eclipse of the Moon until Dec 31, 2028.

By Alan Dyer for SkySafari Premium (enjoy the free preview!) Mark the night of August 27 on your calendar. Late that evening and into the post-midnight hours the Full Moon passes through Earth’s central shadow to turn a deep red color. This isn’t a total eclipse, but it’s close! At mid-eclipse...

08/25/2026

A false alarm last night, August 24, as rumours circulated that the long-awaited outburst of the nova star T Coronae Borealis was underway at last! False alarm. It wasn't. But it was a good rehearsal opportunity to check the gear. So ....
----------
This is the small semi-circular constellation of Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, in a moonlit sky on August 24, 2026. I shot this as a "before" image to compare to an eventual image with the variable "blaze" star T Coronae Borealis in outburst. The outburst had been predicted for sometime in the last year or more at this point, but as of August 2026 we were still waiting!

On this night T Cor Bor was still an innocuous 10th magnitude star below and left of the main pattern. But under its every-few-decade nova outburst it reaches 2nd magnitude, easily visible to the unaided eye and changing the shape of the constellation.

The waxing gibbous Moon is lighting the sky and tinting it blue.

The field of view is 11º by 7.5º with north up. Taken from home in Alberta.

Technical:
A stack of 14 x 1 minute exposures with the Askar FMA 180 astrographic lens at f/4.5 and the Canon R5 at ISO 400. Tracking on the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi mount, but not guided.

08/22/2026

Here's my tale of the total eclipse, in a blog post with lots of images and videos. Enjoy! Only 345 days until the next total solar eclipse!

On August 12, 2026, a total solar eclipse was visible in northern Spain, marking the first such event in Europe since 1999. The author, an experienced eclipse chaser, observed the phenomenon from a…

08/20/2026

A last look at last week’s solar eclipse.

This is the Sun setting with the final partial phase of the August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in progress as it set at 9:13 pm local time, about 42 minutes after the end of totality.

The sky was very dusty, reddening and dimming the Sun enough no filter was needed to shoot or watch it set.

The site was the Bodegas Nabal winery in the Castille Y Leo region of northern Spain, the exclusive location for the tour group from Capture the Atlas that I was with as one of the experts instructing the guests who had come from around the world to see the total eclipse.

With this final view of the eclipse, we began to pack up and then celebrate our successful eclipse chase with a fine dinner and wine at the winery.

Technical:
A single 1/250-second exposure at f/5.6 with the Canon RF70-200mm lens at 200mm on the Canon R5 at ISO 200. No filter was used here.