Partial Lunar Eclipse - 17 July 2019

I knew there was going to be a partial lunar eclipse tonight, but I wasn't going to bother taking any photographs because the moon was very low in the sky and I couldn't see it from my back garden. I found this strange because yesterday it had been a very clear and bright full moon for much of my late night journey home from Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire.

But just before going to bed I thought I'd have one last look from the front of my house and there it was, glowing orangey-red in the sky and rapidly getting smaller. All plans of going to bed were quickly abandoned and I went for my camera, tripod and cable release.

After a couple of minutes of taking a range of shots I settled on an ISO, aperture and shutter speed that seemed to work OK. But although the moon started off quite clear and bright, it was getting smaller as the Earth's shadow on it grew and clouds were starting to appear too. All this made it very difficult to focus and get a clear shot. These shots don't have the clarity and detail of shots I've taken on clear winter's nights, but they do show the progression of the eclipse quite nicely.

I've never really mastered the art of taking photographs of the moon or night sky and everything becomes a matter of trial and error, which means taking loads of shots on different settings. I set up at the front of my house where anyone in the street could see me and although not many people or cars went past, but I'm sure those that did were thinking, 'What's this nutter doing?'.

The last shot shows that the moon was indeed almost full and that the Earth cast a shadow on it as it rotated. So there you have it, the final lunar eclipse of 2019 as seen from Tyldesley in Greater Manchester.