On Tuesday 16 July, 2019, there was a partial lunar eclipse visible from most of Europe. I decided to spend the night in a hut halfway up a mountain near Vienna to watch this eclipse, and invited some colleagues to come along. We were lucky that it was a mostly clear sky that evening, making for excellent viewing from just over 1200m up.
Here’s the view back down the valley from the hut, looking east.
At around 21:00 the full moon appeared from behind the hills in the distance.
Slowly it rose higher…
…and higher.
Another view of the valley, shortly after sunset.
By around 22:00 the moon had risen well above the haze near the horizon, and the sky had turned completely dark.
Not long after, the first part of the earth’s shadow hit the moon.
Growing bigger…
…and bigger, while the moon passed behind some trees on a nearby hill.
By around 23:00 the shadow covered roughly half the moon’s surface.
The eclipse reached its maximum, at 65% coverage, around 23:30. The only way to see a bit of the faint red glow in the shadowy part was by over-exposing the image.
Shortly after we decided to go to bed and still get a good night’s sleep, as we would be hiking down the hill the next morning.