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Todd Bush Photographs the Beaver Moon Lunar Eclipse While Battling High Winds at Grandfather Mountain

The Beaver Moon partial lunar eclipse began early Friday morning, which meant the moon passed into the shadow of the Earth, resulting in a red-brown hue covering the moon.

Local photographer Todd Bush took this occurrence as an opportunity to leave in the early hours to attempt to capture the event at his favorite mountain — Grandfather Mountain.

Running on only a couple of hours of sleep, he arrived at the parking lot for the Mile High Swinging Bridge around 3 a.m. Friday and found “crazy high winds with car-rocking, knock-stuff-over gusts.”

“Things didn’t look good for photography,” Bush said. 

In addition to the wind, Bush experienced “clouds zooming by leaving biting frost on metal, glass and skin.”

“It took all I could do to get up the stairs from the parking lot to the bridge area hoping to include the bridge and moon in the frame,” he said. “I could not safely stand in one place, so I laid on my side next to a tree for what little wind block could be had. Limbs were banging me in the head during gusts that froze your face into a Joker smile that wasn’t pretty. There was no way to get a photo.”

So, after taking a warm-up break in his car, Bush discovered the back-side of the Top Shop was somewhat wind blocked and made a good base to capture the following images.

From the back side of the Top Shop around 4 a.m. Friday
Under the Mile High Swinging Bridge that was “shouting in song in the mighty wind” around 4:30 a.m.
Todd Bush’s tribute to GM – Grandfather Mountain with the help of his red headlamp in the parking lot at 5:12 a.m.