Insomnia was driving me a little crazy. I hadn’t managed to fall sleep before 2 a.m. in over a month. Too much stress over restoration projects at my summer home in Anaconda, Montana, I suppose. Since a good night’s rest lay frustratingly outside my capabilities, I decided to get out the door and have a moonlight adventure. The only available moonlight, however, was dim and blood-red – the result of a supermoon lunar eclipse. Not the best omen for a trouble-free escapade, but my time in the Rockies was nearing an end, and a little spectacle on a cold autumn night just might make it easier to say goodbye.

Lunar eclipses can occur every six months when a full moon drifts though the shadow cast by the earth through space. The supermoon phenomenon, where the orb appears 14% larger than normal, happens when the moon glides closest to the earth in its elliptical orbit. This coincides with lunar eclipses every twenty years or so. 14% might not seem like much of an enhancement, but supermoons are also 30% brighter, which I thought would help with navigation during tonight’s escapade - a visit to the gargantuan Anaconda Smelter Stack, atop the hill southeast of the city.