Sept. 28 - Super Harvest Blood Moon

Aransas Bay - Anchorage

We’ve taken Texas Pearl out for short day cruises, but we haven’t had a chance to anchor out on her since we arrived in Rockport last November. With the trifecta of lunar events occurring last night and the weather actually being cool enough to be on the boat with our AC, we decided to cruise to the other side of the bay and enjoy a night on the hook.

Last night there was a total eclipse that coincided with the full moon nearest the fall equinox, known as the harvest moon. This moon was at its closest approach to Earth for the year, making it also a supermoon or perigee moon. Some websites called it a Super Harvest Blood Moon. This confluence has only happened five times since 1900 and according to NASA it won’t happen again until 2033.

The moon appeared to be red during the total eclipse, because sunlight shining through the ring of Earth's dusty atmosphere was bent toward the red part of the spectrum and was cast onto the moon's surface. The next total eclipse of the moon will appear on January 31, 2018.

We had a great seat for the event and luckily our sky was only partly cloudy…in the beginning. About the time the total eclipse occurred the clouds took our moon away and our bright night got very dark. Although we didn’t get to see the total eclipse of the blood moon we had a great time on the water. The clouds disappeared later in the night and we did catch the moon while it looked a little orange…unfortunately it was too high in the sky for me to get a good picture. Using a telephoto lens is a little difficult on a swaying boat, so my pictures aren’t as good as some others I’ve seen on the web today.

While we waited for the full moon to rise we enjoyed a wonderful sunset.

I saw this picture on Facebook this morning and had to share it. It was taken by Mike Mezeul II in Dallas.