Man’s Lunar Eclipse Shot Photobombed by Plane: ‘Never Had Luck Like This’

A Reddit post about an incredibly unique photobomb moment captured during a partial lunar eclipse last week has gone viral.
The image was captured in Monroe, Wisconsin, by Ross Harried on September 17 and shared in a Reddit post under the username SecondCropCreative. Harried is a 37-year-old freelance photographer based in Monroe specializing in sports, music and live events. The post has amassed 28,000 upvotes since it was posted last week.
The post features a picture of the moon against the night sky, with a dark shadow partially over the moon. A silhouette of a plane is seen on the left side of the moon, with its flight path traced across the right side.
“You people on flight TAP238 [Air Portugal] San Francisco to Lisbon just photobombed my lunar eclipse shot,” Harried captioned the photo. In a later comment, he added,”Never had luck like this.”
“Immediately after I shot the photo, I knew I wanted to look up the flight. Because I am also a drone pilot and a genuinely curious person, I had the FlightRadar24 app [a flight tracking app] on my phone. I just opened it up and TAP238 from San Francisco to Lisbon, Portugal, was the only plane in my airspace,” Harried told Newsweek.
He continued: “It was a matter of maybe two minutes of me stepping out on to my front porch to looking up at the moon to dialing in my settings to capturing the shot. Sometimes I am blown away by how I can put myself in situations where I get lucky. But I also believe luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”
A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun, Earth, and moon align so that the moon passes through Earth’s shadow. Those in the Northern Hemisphere were lucky enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the partial lunar eclipse last Tuesday.
A partial eclipse is “an imperfect alignment of Sun, Earth and moon,” which sees the moon passing through only part of the Earth’s shadow. “The shadow grows and then recedes without ever entirely covering the moon,” the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explains on its website.
According to NASA, the next lunar eclipse, which will be a total lunar eclipse, takes place around mid-March 2025, and will be visible in the Pacific, the Americas, Western Europe and Western African regions.
When a total lunar eclipse occurs, the entire moon falls within the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, which is known as the umbra. “When the moon is within the umbra, it will turn a reddish hue. Lunar eclipses are sometimes called ‘Blood Moons’ because of this phenomenon,” NASA notes.
Binoculars or a telescope can give you an enhanced view of this red color. But generally, special equipment is not required to observe a lunar eclipse, NASA says, adding that “a dark environment away from bright lights makes for the best viewing conditions.”
Recalling the moment he captured the shot of the lunar eclipse, Harried told Newsweek: “I literally walked out onto my front porch in Monroe,” anticipating the eclipse to hit its peak soon, and “I took my Sony A1 [camera] with a 300 2.8 lens and 2x teleconverter [lens] and pointed it at the moon to dial in the correct exposure for a shot I was going to take in four to five minutes around 9:46 p.m. [local time].”
He added: “As I was dialing in my shutter speed and aperture, I saw a small black dot start moving across the moon from the top right to bottom left. I fired off about four to five shots and the one you saw on Reddit is the best shot in my opinion because the wingtips of the plane are perfectly highlighted by two impact craters on the moon’s surface.”
The photographer said he is “absolutely satisfied” with his shot, noting that “it would be impossible to stage a shot like this—both in expertise and resources.”
Harried loves capturing images like this moon shot, as “all it takes is one shot, blink your eye and the moment is gone—that’s what I love about photography. High stakes, high reward.”
His recent shot of the plane crossing in front of the moon is one he says he can cross off of his bucket list, especially as “it wasn’t just any moon shot,” but one during a partial lunar eclipse.
“The universe decided to present a gift to me that night, and I was just ready to capture it and share it with the world,” he said.
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