Easter eclipse over Polo, South Dakota

If you remember from second-grade science, the moon does not have it’s own light – it relies on the Sun’s rays to reflect off of its surface. When the Earth’s shadow blocks all of the Sun’s light from reaching the Moon’s surface, waa-laa, there you have it – a total lunar eclipse!

I first woke about 5 a.m. to a bright, full moon. An hour later when the alarm went off, it was very noticeably darker in the house. I woke up my daughter. She asked to see it the night before! After a, “WOW that’s really cool!” she was content to watch out her bedroom window. We have a clear view to the southwestern sky from our backyard, so I packed my gear out and around the corner of our house to take these few shots as the eclipse neared totality.