Professional landscape and travel photographer Dan Zafra, known for his website Capture the Atlas, traveled from his home in Nevada to the wilds of Alaska last week to capture the total lunar eclipse against a beautiful backdrop of the Northern lights.
When he realized that there was going to be an opportunity to see the aurora the same night as the total lunar eclipse, also known as the Blood Moon, Zafra went for it. His boldness paid off as he was treated to clear skies and beautiful, vibrant green Northern lights.
“I had originally planned this trip to Alaska around the spring equinox, a period often associated with heightened solar activity,” Zafra tells PetaPixel. “Typically, I schedule my trips during a New Moon for optimal dark skies, but I made an exception this time. The rare opportunity to witness a total lunar eclipse alongside the aurora was too good to pass.”
To capture the incredible event, Zafra went to Alaska armed with three cameras: one on a star tracker with a 400mm lens to capture close-up shots of the Moon during the eclipse, another to capture wide-angle shots (20mm), and a third dedicated to timelapse. Zafra says his aurora exposures were 20 seconds at f/5.6 and ISO 10,000, while his star shots were four seconds (f/5.6, ISO 6,400). Finally, the Moon was shot at one-fifth of a second at f/5.6 and ISO 6,400.
“My workflow began with setting up the timelapse to run continuously throughout the event. I only had to adjust it once when the aurora climbed much higher in the sky than expected. Next, I set up my star-tracked telephoto lens for detailed close-ups. I used the Benro Polaris star tracker, which allowed me to automate bracketed exposures. Finally, I positioned a third camera with a wide-angle lens to capture landscape shots of the event,” the photographer explains.
“It was a bit stressful managing multiple setups,” Zafra admits. “But with totality lasting about an hour, I had enough time to capture everything and still fully experience the moment.”
Zafra is no stranger to incredible events — he has seen many amazing auroras and a couple of total lunar eclipses before — but he was still enthralled by seeing both at once.
“I never expected the interaction between the [aurora and eclipse] to be so mesmerizing,” Zafra says. “Standing on a frozen lake, I watched as the landscape slowly dimmed while the Moon slipped into Earth’s shadow. At the same time, the aurora intensified, filling the sky with vibrant waves of light.”
“After totality ended, it felt like someone had turned the lights back on—the landscape brightened again, and the Moon’s glow returned. It was surreal, magical, and unlike anything I had ever experienced.”
Once Zafra returned home, he started processing all his images. For the close-up shots, he used PixInsight to remove the stars from the background of the aurora image, blended them back in from a separate shot, and then merged the properly exposed Moon into the final frame.
“Given the extreme difference in brightness between the Moon and aurora, bracketing was essential,” he says. “Capturing everything in a single shot was impossible.”
For his wide-angle images, the processing workflow was much more straightforward. He combined a single exposure for the landscape and aurora with a shorter exposure to properly expose the scene.
As for the timelapse seen above, he edited the images as usual and then compiled the sequence with LRTimelapse.
“Although I typically shoot wide-angle landscape astrophotography, my favorite shot from this event is the close-up of the eclipsed Moon with the aurora,” Zafra says, adding that he believes it’s a unique and original perspective.
“I’ve seen a few other images of this event from northern Canada and Alaska, I haven’t come across any detailed close-ups that capture both the eclipse and aurora together. That makes this image even more special to me.”
More of Dan Zafra’s photography is available on Capture the Atlas‘ website, Facebook, and Instagram.
Image credits: All photos by Dan Zafra
