Total Eclipse of the Moon

While I sit on our sofa fipping through notecards,on chapter 4 of 33 (yes I made 33 chapters worth of notecards), my sweet man decided to write up a post about seeing the blood moon together. A little memory we will forever have tucked away and one day share with kiddos. Hope you enjoy reading his fun story of the event as much as I did! Husband, take it away!
The day was Friday and I was reading CNN's main page when part of a headline grabbed my attention: Blood Moon. I wasn't sure what they were talking about but I had to check it out. I read the article about the upcoming total lunar eclipse, what it is, the rarity, and the stunning visual expected. I was hooked. I sent Veronica an instant message (as we do throughout the day) telling her of my discovery and how I wanted to view it on the upcoming Monday night. To my surprise, Veronica was onboard and wanted to do it together. I know my wife and I know waking up at 1:00am isn't on the top of her list of favorite things in life. Add a cold front in the forecast and it seemed very unlikely that she would come along but my wife caught me by surprise and we made our plans.
Monday was a cold, cloudy day with some flurries (in mid-April!) and overall dreariness. But the clouds were on their way out by evening and clear skies were settling in, perfect visibility for the special event that night. We went to bed early, setting our alarms for a little after 1. As the alarm went off, it was tempting to roll back over and go back to sleep but we overcame that urge and started bundling up. The clear skies were perfect for viewing but less than ideal for temperature as the evening warm-up quickly dissipated and cold air filled the region. Even with layers and two blankets, we knew it would be a chilly night but we also knew it was going to be totally worth it.

The eclipse was underway as we left our home. But our interest was in the moments of total eclipse. Add in our lack of interest in being out in the cold longer than we had to and getting to our spot about 45 minutes before the target time was just fine. With the tripod, DSLR, and telephoto lens (75-200mm) in tow, we drove out to our ideal location outside of town, parked on a short farm drive, and set up our blanket on a slight hill facing the moon. I set up the camera, tweaking settings until things looked just right. I was hoping to remotely trigger the camera from my phone (using the Wi-Fi adapter we bought for the DSLR) but it forced the shutter speed to change from the optimal setting to a setting too fast (the moon was barely visible!). So instead, I got up every few minutes, set the timer to 10 seconds, pressed the shutter release and waited for the camera to capture the night scene (so thankful for calm winds, a rarity in Oklahoma!). It was our first time using long exposures in the night and the results were great!

After some time taking in the eclipse and all the stars in the limitless Oklahoma sky, we were ready to get back in bed. We packed up and drove back home, our hearts and minds inspired by our Creator's creation and the phenomenon we were able to witness. -Kevin the husband