Lunar Eclipse over a Skyscraper
Why is the Moon on top of this building?
Planning.
It took the astrophotographer careful planning -- including
figuring out
exactly where to place the camera and exactly when to take the shot --
to create this
striking superposition.
The single image featured was taken in the
early morning hours of November 19, near the peak of the
partial lunar eclipse that was occurring as the
Moon passed through the Earth's shadow.
At this time, almost the
entire Moon -- 99.1 percent of its area -- was in the
darkest part of the Earth's shadow.
The building is the
Gran Torre Santiago building in
Chile, the
tallest building in
South America.
Although the entire
eclipse lasted an impressive six hours,
this image had to be taken within just a few seconds
to get the alignment right -- the
Earth's rotation
soon moved the building out of alignment.
The next Earth-Moon eclipse will be a total
eclipse of the Sun that will occur on
December 4 -- but only be
visible from the bottom of our world.