2021 Blood Supermoon over Marlborough

By: Christopher Cookson

Last Modified: 19-6-2021 9:44

I took the opportunity to head out to the Wairau Lagoons to capture the moon rise. A supermoon is a spectacular event in itself, but a blood supermoon is a rare event, and last time there was one I was my daughter's age, and didn't have a camera. In fact, back then I don't think only astronomers probably had the kind of equipment to capture the moon with suficient magnification to be able to see an detail. Night photography with film is considerably more difficult than with digital cameras, as film's response to light changes when light levels get very low, so accurately calculating exposure times gets really difficult, so this year's event is probably the first one to have been widely photographed.

Last time I photographed even a full moon rise at the Wairau Lagoons was back in 2015, and I captured images of the last blood moon back in 2014, with photographic equipment that was quite different to what I have now.

I seem to be about the only person in existence, in Marlborough at least, who still uses Pentax cameras, and these images were captured on my K-70, with the moonrise using a mix of a Tamron SP AF 70-200 2.8 Di and a Sigma DG 150-500 5-6.3 APO HSM and the eclipse all with the Sigma for those who're interested in the technical details.