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Lunar Eclipse

This is a photo of a lunar eclipse (eclipse of the Moon, where the Earth's shadow covers its bright surface) along with the night sky with some Milky Way nebulosity showing.

Lunar eclipses can be tricky to photograph because the bright part (bottom of the Moon in this photo) which isn't yet covered by the shadow is so bright compared with the darker area where the Sun's light is still shining on the lunar surface.

In this photo I exposed the Moon to get the dark part correct (using full manual control) and didn't worry too much about the bright part being overexposed. I also took a second, much longer exposure (about 30 seconds) to get the background stars, then merged them in a photo editor (PixelMator Pro). I know, technically cheating, but it was the only way to get this effect!