I was lucky enough to experience the lunar eclipse as a tour guide on March 3rd this year. It was so magical! The night started snowy, and I was worried that it would be too cloudy for us to see the moon at all, but it transformed into the clearest night we’ve had in weeks by the start of the eclipse. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, and we had a perfect view of the moon.

We were able to see all the phases of the eclipse so clearly! I pointed the telescope at the moon for the majority of the tour so the guests could stay cozy in their chairs with blankets and hot chocolate, listening to me or the other guide talk about the science behind lunar eclipses, the history and myths surrounding them, and ask questions. At the same time, they still had the opportunity to get up and look at the moon in its different phases as many or as few times as they wanted. I was also taking pictures of each phase through the telescope for the entirety of the tour so that we could send the guests home with photos of everything they got to see, allowing them to stay off their phones and really enjoy the night sky.

It started to get quieter as the eclipse neared totality. We were able to see more and more stars become visible as the sky got darker, and everyone watched as the moon changed from a large shadow with a tiny crescent of light on the edge to a deep blood-red color, which is where the term blood moon comes from. Totality lasted for an hour, so we took the opportunity to capture lots of long-exposure photos of each guest with the moon and all the stars that became visible once the moon’s light was gone.

We capitalized on the darkness we wouldn’t usually get during a full moon, and we were able to look at a bunch of stars, constellations, and asterisms that we normally wouldn’t see during this phase of the moon or earlier in the night during our regular tours. We were even able to see the Milky Way just before totality ended, which is such an amazing experience in the middle of winter when we normally wouldn’t get to see it.

Seeing a lunar eclipse through a telescope is definitely a must-do, and everyone adventurous enough to brave the cold and early hour was rewarded with not just a lunar eclipse, but also the Milky Way in winter, and some pretty amazing pictures to prove they were there for both. Bryce won’t get its next lunar eclipse until 2029, so I am incredibly grateful to have been able to experience this one!