Martian Lunar Eclipse Landscape

Edit: It turns out this image was a finalist in the NASA contest, you can see it and the other finalists here ( http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-021#4 ) . Yay! ;-)

I do have some traditional telephoto shots of the moon I am going to post later, but I wanted to share a slightly different take on the eclipse first. This was taken at full totality, and likely would not be possible to reproduce without the full eclipse. The dimmed moon balanced its light perfectly with the stars, so all in one exposure I am able to pull foreground, stars and moon... just try that on any other night! The unique light of the eclipse also set a crazy Martian mood.

It was so cool how once the moon went into totality and dimmed we started seeing quite a few leftover Geminid meteors. My favorite Christmas lights this season will certainly be astro in nature!

Shot Notes: as mentioned this is a single exposure. The orange glow is from the light pollution of Fort Collins, CO.

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