Selenelion

Also known as a Lunar Eclipse when both moon & sun are present in the sky. Here it is at near totality. If you are wondering why the sky is black & not deep blue, It's due to a little tweaking to increase contrast.

It's not a wonderful shot but I couldn't find my shutter release cable in time so had to try hard not to breathe when pressing the shutter button on the camera.


A few notes on lunar eclipses:
The last time there was a total lunar eclipse on the winter solstice was in 1638. It is only the second time in the Common Era (CE) that they have coincided.
The last total lunar eclipse was around 3 years ago, in February 2008.
During a lunar eclipse, the only light reflected from the moon is the refracted light from the earth, filtered through our atmosphere. Because of the scattering of light wavelengths as they pass through the atmosphere, the only light reflected back to us is at the red end of the spectrum (where wavelengths are the longest), so the moon appears red to us.