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On the evening of the 14th/15th there was a lunar eclipse. Laura and I planned to drive up into the white mountains to a bristlecone pine grove to enjoy the spectacle and hopefully get some winning pics. Unfortunately Laura had too much paperwork to make it up for the sunset/moonrise, but the moon looked awfully big as we headed up. For no apparent reason the gate was locked, so we just parked at the nearby overlook. I took some pictures of the full moon and moonlit valley and sierras and then crawled into my bag for a few hours of sleep. I got up at 11:20 and the moon was partly shadowed. It was also a lot darker than the full moon had been. By the time there was only a sliver illuminated and the "blood" moon was visible it was clear that it was too dark for decent pics of this with my camera set up. What I really needed was a tracking mount for a longer exposure without the moon moving in the frame. I boosted the ISO way up to get pics, but at the cost of a lot of digital noise. Still, it was really cool to see, and also amazingly darker without the glare of the full moon. It was possible to see light on the horizon from the central valley, and this was very obvious in the longer exposures. Then we loaded back up for a tiring drive back to the valley. Before I went to bed I took one more look at the returning moon. It was pretty hazy from Bishop compared to up in the Whites.
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