Our cats and dogs typically begin their mornings well before sunrise. Most times I’ll capitulate to their rumblings, resigned to that pesky owner-pet agreement. I’ll grab my robe, start the coffee, stagger downstairs to feed the dogs, then stagger back upstairs to let everyone out, and finally draw a cup of coffee and start my morning.

This morning I broke protocol. Because on Friday, I had read about the lunar eclipse that was going to take place early today and made a mental note: “why not try making a picture of that?”  So instead of grabbing my robe after the animals got me up, I stepped directly out to the deck to see if the moon was about in the southeastern sky. The cats dashed out with me. The dogs were vexed. I didn’t see the moon and thought I slept through the eclipse, so I grabbed my robe and fed the dogs.

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed first thing in the morning, so it took a few moments for me to consider looking to the western sky for the eclipse. I stepped out the front door to see, and lo and behold, there it was, the Blood Moon, in the latter stages of eclipse.

What follows is a more-or-less true account of how I made my picture. Bear in mind that I’d been awake for maybe 10 minutes and hadn’t yet had coffee when this went down. And the last time I took a picture of the moon was in 2012, when  Neil Armstrong died.

First there was the mental check list: Okay, where’s the camera? In the dining room, where you left it. Where’s a card? Perhaps there’s one in the camera. Should I use the 400? Uh, that would be a yes. Can I hand-hold it? No. Hell no. Where’s the monopod? It’s out in the garage, where you left it. 

About five minutes later I found myself standing in the middle of the street in my robe and sweatpants in 29-degree weather with my 400mm lens (and a 1.4 teleconverter) on a monopod, pointed at the moon some 240,000 miles away. It was 5:53 a.m.

Then came the actual taking of the picture. I was a bit more on task by then: Okay, what’s the exposure for the moon in eclipse? Well it’s not f/18 at 1/160 second at 400 ISO. I cranked up the ISO to 6400 and opened up the lens. There’s always movement to consider when shooting the moon with a long lens, too. I settled on an exposure of f/4 at 1/25 second and shot in a burst to preserve sharpness.

All told, it’s an okay picture. A faster shutter speed might have helped make a nicer image, as would a bit more preparation. The next total lunar eclipse takes place Sept. 28, so that gives me some time to get ready. And it takes place at 8:11 p.m., which suits me even better.