Through the shadow

Fog on the horizon

The evening of the eclipse I was out in the car, scouting the countryside near home for the best view of the rising moon. But as the sun went down, the fog came up. The whole horizon turned a hazy dark blue. The moon would rise already in the earth’s shadow, and behind that haze there would be nothing to see for at least an hour. Other people were out too, waiting along the roads. We’re all out of luck tonight, I thought.

Giving up

So I drove home and made my peace with it. Some eclipses you just don’t get.

In the window

Maybe forty-five minutes later, maybe an hour, it was fully dark. I glanced through the big sliding door at the back of the house, the one that opens onto the garden, and there she was. The moon had climbed just above the low fog bank. Still veiled, as if someone had put a soft filter in front of her, but clearly there.

A light in the haze

One of the things I love to photograph is planes crossing the moon. It always takes luck. That night the haze helped. In the misty sky I could see a plane coming in, its lights glowing, and from there I could follow the line it was flying. By eye I could tell the odds were good. It was going to cross.

Through the bright part

By then the earth’s shadow still covered about forty percent of the moon. One part dark, the rest still bright. And the plane flew right through the lit part. I took hundreds of photos. No video this time. A year earlier I had filmed a plane crossing the blue supermoon in 4K, but this was an eclipse, and I wanted stills. The plane was Japan Airlines flight JAL44, an Airbus A350 on its way from London to Tokyo.

Not the evening I planned

None of it was planned. The evening went completely differently than I had imagined. I had given up and gone home, and that is exactly where it happened.