The eclipse hour over Boa Vista

In this calm scene of Boa Vista Island (the Cape Verde) starry sky appears over Chavet beach and dunes close to the Atlantic ocean. Just very low over the horizon, the Milky Way “flows” like a sky river. You may notice several reddish regions, which are, in fact, one of the most notorious nebulae in the sky. Pointing at these gems from left, where the Southern Cross rises, you can spot Carina Nebula, the Gum Nebula or even Rosette Nebula on right. But there is more. The scene was captured on 21 January 2019 during the “eclipse hour“, when the full Moon was completely submergend in the Earth’s shadow. You can find it as the orange object on the right, close by two bright stars of the Gemini constellation, Castor and Pollux. You can also spot the star cluster Beehive just above the Moon. Most prominent duo is, however, just over the eastern horizon, where planets Venus and Jupiter rise. They are located in the morning bright column of the Zodiacal Light, which continues in the dark sky as a faint band along the ecliptic. As the Moon is located in the anti-solar point, it is surrounded by brighter zodiacal counter glow called Gegenschein.

In fact, a lunar eclipse is one of the ways to see the Earth’s shadow in the sky. While slowly moving through (roughly from west to east), the shape of the shadow beautifully appears on the full Moon, producing lunar eclipse. If you tracked the Moon against the starry foreground (and accounted the parallax effects), you would be able to demostrate a story of lunar eclipse the way like this. In the view is vizualized Earth’s shadow shape by the Moon moving through it on 21st January, 2019, and also colours on the lunar surface caused by sunlight scattered in Earth’s atmosphere. Two bright stars on right are Castor and Pollux of Gemini constellation and on left is already mentioned beautiful naked-eye visible star cluster Messier 44 (the Beehive). Used canon 6D, Sigma 50 mm Art, f5, 45x60s (stacked, darkrfames applied) + different exposures of the lunar eclipse from tripod and Vixen Polarie mount.