Blood Moon

I was excited to see the blood moon two days ago on November 8 th after viewing the beautiful super moon earlier in the year. Unfortunately, rain and clouds blocked my view from Central Hong Kong. I took this shot while running for the shuttle bus, then later photoshopped the “moon” into the image (it’s really an orange). I don’t know which is more amazing: an orange floating in the sky or seeing that particular cluster of iconic Hong Kong buildings.

A blood moon occurs when a full moon moves into the Earth’s shadow when the Earth is between the sun and the moon. The moon turns red (or orange-red) because the only light that reaches the surface is filtered through the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s rare because the moon is not usually lined up this way since its orbit is elliptical. In fact, the next time we’ll be able to see a blood moon resulting from a total lunar eclipse is in 2025.

Tuesday’s blood moon was especially unusual because it was also possible to see Uranus just left of the moon (at least from places where it wasn’t raining, I suppose). The planet was to have appeared as a small blue disc visible with the naked eye. That would have been amazing to see: Uranus, the giant ice planet named after the grandfather of Zeus. Maybe I’ll photoshop that into the image above.