Blogtrek

Lunar Eclipse

Yesterday I observed one of nature's more interesting phenomena - a lunar eclipse. I was attending a meeting in Baltimore on 2003 November 9, and left a little early to be back to Richmond by 1800 (6 o'clock) to set up my equipment for the eclipse. I got back at 1740 and ate dinner at a nearby McDonald's. Then I went over to the Science Museum, where a public skywatch was taking place. I got out my eight-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and aligned it with the stars. I then pointed it at the moon. What followed was an interesting night.

The Moon first entered the Earth's shadow at 1833.Gradually the moon lost more and more of its lit surface, and an eerie red took its place. An eclipsed moon shows up red, because it is reflecting all of Earth's lovely red sunsets, sunrises, and suntouches around the world. If you were on the Moon, you would see a total eclipse of the Sun by the Earth. The dark or night side of the Earth would show, and it would be surrounded by a red circle or ring where the sunrises and sunsets are. It would look like a ring of fire in the sky, and that ring would be shining its red on the Moon, making the lunar landscape red. We see this redness from the Earth when we look at a total lunar eclipse.

I took several pictures of the Moon by placing a digital camera right up to the eyepiece until the image shows on the digital display of what the camera sees. I then snap the shutter and this results in a picture. It is a fairly easy technique, and it produces good pictures. One visitor even wanted me to take pictures with her digital camera. I took it and she had a pictorial souvenir of the eclipse.

Later in the evening, the moon came out of the shadow of the eclipse. It was not a long eclipse. The Moon just barely came entirely inside one side of the Earth's umbra, or what might be termed the Great Shadow of Night (we were in it, too). There was one bright side to the disk of the moon, making it look as though it were not fully eclipsed. After the Moon started coming out of the eclipse, people wanted to see other things. It was a beautiful night, with only Richmond light pollution holding us back from seeing all the wonders of the heavens. I pointed the telescope at Mars. It was still a good object to observe, but it is not as easy to pick out markings on the planet now. Someone wanted to see Saturn. This is always a prizewinner at public skywatches, because of its unique appearance. So I told the telescope to point to Saturn. It went completely level, then rotated and pointed at some lights in a walkway near the Museum. It was too low to see. A little later, I saw it but when I tried to point the telescope at it, a light pole was in the way. It moved away from the light pole, and then I got the telescope on Saturn. Then I showed people Saturn with its rings through the telescope. They expressed great wonder at the planet, and some even said it didn't look real. But it was real. It was Saturn in the telescope, with its rings.

Given a clear dark sky, any skywatch held when Saturn and the Moon are both up will be a success.