Eclipsed Moon with Mars in the starry night above Rocca Calascio castle ruins

'The phase of totality of the lunar eclipse of 27 July 2018 about to finish in the night sky crowded with stars above the ruins of Rocca Calascio castle, in Italy. The Earth's atmosphere refracts the long wavelength part of the sunlight painting the Moon in a bright orange color which compares to the red shining Mars, next to its opposition phase in respect to our planet.
To shoot this photograph I carried my equatorial mount on top of the mountain for tracking the sidereal motion, so avoiding the motion-blur caused by Earth rotation during the 10 seconds exposure time. I adopted the common processing suited for astronomical nightscapes of this kind, i.e. shoot a second 10 seconds non-tracked photo for the ground and the castle, and a short 1 second shot for the Moon's surface, and combine the images via masked stacking. Usual contrast enhancement of the stars is finally applied to mimic the eye's perception.
Camera: Nikon D800, Lens: 85mm/1.8 @F/5, Exposure: 3200 ISO, 2x10 sec + 1 sec.'

Gianluca Li Causi

Institution: INAF - The Italian National Institute for Astrophysics