It was cold. It was late. It was cloudy. But Canberra photographer Adrian Fallace braved it all to photograph a rare lunar event on Wednesday night.
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Mr Fallace outlasted other photographers in the National Rock Garden car park to get a snap of the blood moon, which was covered by cloud for most of the night.
"There were people everywhere," he said. "They all had their tripods and cameras out and as soon as the moon disappeared behind the cloud they all [left]."
"I was very close to going home and my friend was like 'no, we're here. It's cold and we're out here so we may as well as stick to it' so we waited around and I think I got the shot about 12:30.
"We could see the clouds and we could see it moving so we thought 'oh well we'll stay' and that was one of the last photos I took before we thought 'nope - it's cold time to go home'."
A self-taught photographer, Mr Fallace said most of his shots were blurry and out of focus.
"I wasn't expecting to get such a good shot," he said. "I didn't even expect to get a shot at all. I expected nothing."
"As soon as I got out there and saw the cloud cover I thought - this is going to be a big waste of time and considering I've never taken a moon shot I didn't know what I was doing exactly. I just thought I'd have a crack."
Mr Fallace said the weather made it hard to get a good photo.
"I couldn't go for a slow shutter speed...because the lens that I was using [extended] a fair way past the tripod and 'cause it was windy, the wind was shaking the camera."
"So I had to go fairly quick - which was a pain in the butt."
The lunar event was a rare convergence of three celestial events - a super moon, a blue moon and a full lunar eclipse. This means the second full moon of the calendar month (a blue moon) was at its closest point to the Earth, appearing bigger and brighter (a super moon) and was fully eclipsing as it passed directly behind the Earth.
The rare event was last seen in Australia in 1982, however for the western hemisphere, the last lunar trifecta occurred in 1866, more than 150 years ago.
Did you take a photo of Wednesday night's moon? Send it to us at online@canberratimes.com.au
