A blood moon occurs during a total lunar eclipse, when the moon is on the night side of the earth (i.e., opposite side of the earth as the sun.) It is called a blood moon due to the reddish cast of the moon as it passes into the earth’s shadow. To get really good pictures, you need a better camera, a telescope, or a sky tracking rig.

Due to the rotation of the moon around the earth, a solar eclipse is always two weeks away from a lunar eclipse. In this case, the solar eclipse will be on March 29th. The next blood moon will be around March 3, 2026 near when the moon sets.

At 2:21 am CST, the cell phone took a pretty miserable picture.

At 2:29 am CST, the DSLR with a 250 mm lens did better than the cell phone camera. This photo was taken with less exposure than some of the other photos, so the overall image is darker, but the white edge does not overpower the image.

At 2:44 am CST, the tripod was set up and the 400mm lens on the DSLR.

The plan was to do an HDR version of the pictures from a bracketed exposure of three photos.

The HDR photo is interesting, but the seam where the light and dark meet is disappointing. I am working on HDR by hand, but I am not sure I have the patience for it.