Blood Moon

I hadn't planned on staying up to watch the lunar eclipse.  It wasn't going to happen until around 12:30-1am and I value a decent night's sleep way too much these days.  It trumps just about everything else.  But the girls have been getting a lot better at sleeping through the night, so I figured the occasional exception could now be made.  I really miss those old days of setting the alarm clock for 3am to go out and watch a meteor shower, it's been years.  So stay up I would.  Still, I almost didn't make it.  Around 12:25 I was going to throw in the towel (man, I'm sounding old), but I poked my head out the door and could see just a sliver of darkness making it's way across the edge of the moon.  That got me sufficiently excited, so now I had to see it.  I realized that this was a photo worthy event and at the same time that the camera on my phone wasn't going to be up to the task.  I ran up to grab my old HP Photosmart 945.  It's a ~10 year old digitial camera that somehow still takes some pretty great shots.  I figured the battery would be, at best, nearly dead because I hadn't used it in 6+ months.  And it was.  But only nearly!...I was able to snap off a few shots before it shut itself off.  I hurried to get it in the charging cradle and hoped it would be ready again in time for the main event.  And it was!  So here's a few of my no-tripod, shaky hand, ancient digital camera shots - some of which, actually - not too shabby!

Took this with the cell phone.  Couldn't see any of the eclipse detail, but it turned out looking like the cover of a Carl Sagan book.

The rest are with the HP camera.  I love the transposed reflection that shows up here. 

Starting to take on that reddish hue.

Tried taking some with the flash.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

Fully eclipsed!  1:05am.  Time for bed.