In this composite, I have included a sequence of images taken over a 30 min period during the total lunar eclipse on 26 May 2021. This encompasses the 15 min. prior to the beginning of the total eclipse, as well as the roughly 15 minutes that the moon was completely within the Earth's shadow. All images presented here were obtained using a planetary camera equipped with an IMX 178 color sensor, taken through my 80 mm refractor (480 mm focal length.)

As the moon became progressively darker, I increased the gain and exposure time in order to better capture the details of the lunar surface. I started with an initial setting of gain = 8, exposure 100 ms at the beginning of the imaging session, and by middle of the total eclipse I had increased this to gain = 11, exposure 500 ms. For each image in the sequence, I captured a 60 s video. I stacked all of the frames in AutoStakkert! 3 and sharpened them in Registax 6.

For this eclipse, I used a flip mirror so that I could also make visual observations in between captures. In processing the images, I tried to replicate (at least as much as possible) the level of contrast that I observed between the brighter and darker regions of the moon during different points of the eclipse. In terms of coloration, from my location the moon had a dull brown color rather than an orange-red color as I have seen in other eclipses. This seemed to be faithfully captured by the camera, so I did not attempt to make any color adjustments other than increasing the saturation.

I wish I could have taken a longer image sequence here, but it always takes more time than expected to get everything optimized properly. The differences in shading between the various images are subtle but hopefully provides some indication of what the moon looked like as it approached the total eclipse. It looks like we'll have another opportunity to see a very good partial lunar eclipse later this year, in November 2021.

Note: The moon images are shown from right to left to mimic the path the moon takes relative to the Earth's shadow.