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Planning, uncertainty, a last-minute highway journey and elation within the battle towards cloud cowl. Malaysian photographer Tharuman Gnanamoorthy set off on a private mission to seize the March 3 Blood Moon complete lunar eclipse.
Gnanamoorthy’s gorgeous composite pictures doc the mesmerizing great thing about the orange-red full moon because it rose totally eclipsed over the japanese coast of Malaysia, together with the waning partial phases that adopted as Earth‘s shadow slipped from its historical floor. They characterize the fruits of weeks of planning, ability and luck, which can by no means have come to fruition had a single determination fallen the unsuitable manner.
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Gnanamoorthy kept a watchful eye on the weather forecast as the eclipse drew closer, tracking cloud fronts that could make or break his expedition. “At one point, I even experimented with trying to “train” my Seestar S50 to detect the moon through cloud cover — an attempt that, unsurprisingly, proved futile,” lamented Gnanamoorthy.
He had initially planned to pack up his equipment and embark on a 280-mile (450-kilometer) trip north to the western coastal city of Alor Setar in the state of Kedah, after using Google Earth and Photopills to meticulously plan the shoot.
As the day of the eclipse dawned, the weather over Alor Setar deteriorated, forcing Gnanamoorthy to abandon his original plan in favor of a new destination on the eastern shoreline of the peninsula, close to the city of Kota Bharu, 310 miles (500 km) to the north. With luck, he would find a spot with a clear view of the moon as it rose, eclipsed over the South China Sea, and hope that clouds didn’t arrive to ruin the show.
“Faced with this uncertainty, I made a last-minute decision to drive across the country,” recalled Gnanamoorthy. “The journey took more than seven hours, cutting across the peninsula with little room for delay. I needed to arrive before sunset to scout for a suitable location and set up my equipment.”
“I eventually settled on a stretch of coastline at Pantai Pak Amat, just outside Kota Bharu, with a clear eastern horizon over the South China Sea,” explained Gnanamoorthy. “Conditions were not perfect — low clouds still hugged the horizon — but they were far more promising than those on the west coast.”
Gnanamoorthy waited alone on the deserted beach as the appointed moment of moonrise came and went, hidden behind an impenetrable barrier of cloud that had settled low on the horizon.
Emotions rose as the fleeting phase of totality continued to ebb away with the moon lost from sight behind a veil of clouds. Finally, a little over 30 minutes after moonrise, the clouds parted, revealing the lunar disk as it passed through the deepest section of our planet’s shadow, while bathed in the orange-red light of every sunrise and sunset on Earth.
“It was an incredible moment,” recounted Gnanamoorthy. “For a brief instant, I simply stood there, stunned. Then instinct took over. I moved quickly between both systems, following the imaging workflow I had rehearsed.”
The payoff was spectacular.
Gnanamoorthy combined the bracketed images captured using the Sony A7III with footage from the Seestar S50 in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to create gorgeous compositions that chronicled the blood moon’s transformation from rusty crimson back to its usual silvery lustre.
“One unexpected aspect of the experience came afterward,” said Gnanamoorthy. “I later discovered that Pantai Pak Amat is historically significant — it marks the landing site of Japanese forces in Malaya on December 8, 1941. I returned the following morning to photograph the monument, along with the rising Milky Way core above the same coastline.”
Inspired to begin your own astrophotography journey? Then be sure to read our guides to imaging the lunar surface and capturing the night sky. Don’t forget to also peruse our roundups of the best cameras and lenses available in 2026 if you’re new to photography, or simply want to upgrade your equipment.
Editor’s Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com’s readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to [email protected].
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