Total Lunar Eclipse: 28 Aug 2007

[Bergkamp_]

rainning..

[zackae]

haha watched it online. So cool. Blood moon. RAWR!

[hanif_90]

it's a pity the weather prevent us from observing the eclipse....nonetheless, thanks to Discovery Channel Asia, we are able to watch it live!

[starfinder]

Of all days to be so completely cloudy! I went home right after work in view (pardon the pun) of the clouds. Such party poopers, right on cue.

From home, I did not manage to have even one glimpse of the Moon, though I did see the Hubble Space Telescope briefly sail overhead.

Oh well, I watched the live stream of the Eclipse on the Discovery Channel website from about 7pm. Tks to Weixing for the lead. The copper colour of the Moon was very apparent, and it was interesting to see it slowly fade away at the end of totality, with the bright white sections of the disc slowly getting larger and brighter.

I suppose live streams are a good second best, esp since all who "view" through the Hubble Space Telescope, the Keck I&II, and other very large observatory scopes only do so through computer monitors.

[kenny]

Hello everyone, I'm very new to this forum, although I've subscribed to Singastro mailing list since it was started a few years ago. I'm currently located in Melbourne and have just returned to star-gazing after a 10-year break and probably know 2 or 3 fellow forum members *waves*, and I'll deeply appreciate any guidance I can get! =)

And what better time for me to start learning about astro-imaging than a total lunar eclipse! Sorry for the poor quality of the following images though, there's a lot of trial and error involved. Not to mention cloudy conditions during most of the session so I missed out a huge period for prime eclipse images.

All the pics were taken a few hours ago with the following "karang guni" equipment. (still waiting for scope and webcam to arrive)

- Canon Powershot A85 4.0 megapixels
- Creative PC Cam 850 1.2 megapixels
- Sokkia surveying electronic total station with 170mm focal length, 45mm aperture, 1.5deg FoV, 26x magnification erect image

Types of shots taken - No zoom, 3x optical zoom (Canon), hand-held afocal (mostly Creative).

The Creative webcam couldn't seem to take the darker totality "Bloodmoon" images, hence they were all taken with the Canon on a tripod. :? I would've taken more if not for the thick clouds. Once again I apologise for the really bad and blurry images. :oops:

Uploaded in my personal album:

http://www.singastro.org/album_personal ... er_id=1631



Edit: added intro paragraph.

[rcj]

Hi Kenny,

Yes, I think u are certainly one of the lucky few to be in Australia and catch a good view of the eclipse. It was totally over cast here in Spore and probably the region. Those images would certainly be keepers and memorabilia for years to come! cheers! see u soon!

[kenny]

Yea definitely memorable experience although I only caught less than half the eclipse on camera due to really bad clouds from moonrise to totality.

The last time I observed a total lunar eclipse was 16 Sep '97, tried using the same technique but with a normal 400 film camera and a 10x50. Naturally the results were less than appealing. Junwei did a much better job then!

[Tachyon]

I went for a nice dinner instead! If the water vapor content of the atmosphere continues to rise and cloud cover increases, then I'll be an armchair astronomer from now on!

Thanks Kenny for sharing your pics with us!

[Airconvent]

Its maddening that during critical periods, the skies always get cloudy, where it is the biggest meteor shower in decades or the brightest comet in 60 years...its alway cloudy!
Glad to see you enjoyed the great views from down under, Kenny!