Red eye on Orion!

Well, it was hardly a clear night, but the moon fought off the clouds and haze to give us a wonderful show, as we watched the eclipse from a beautiful, dark-sky setting in South Dartmouth, MA. What a show! The highlight for our little group was the "red eye" phase when the moon seemed to be turning the "evil eye" on Orion, a good ways off to its west. Wonder what hex it put on the hunter? Maybe Betelgeus will go nova tonight? Or perhaps the Milkyway will curdle as it passes nearby?

These are some casual shots with the Canon Rebel and a 300mm IS lens that I hope give some feel for what we saw. The first picture was taken at about 7 am, before the eclipse began, when there were plenty of clouds passing quickly by, so that's a cloud, not the Earth's shadow, you see in the upper left of that first image. The others were taken as the eclipse progressed from 8:45 pm to totality at 10 pm. Trying to decide when totality took place without checking the clock, we were about 30 seconds late in judging it. There's a study that I hope got a lot of participants last night where people are trying to determine how difficult it is to judge the four "contact" points during an eclipse. I look forward to seeing those results in Sky and Telescope. I'm guessing one of the easiest points to time correctly is the second one - when totality begins.

In any event, Barbara and Ron hosted our Prime Time study group at their farm, providing a great dark-sky site as well as a comfortable vantage point complete with sleeping bags to ward off the 27-degree chill. Actually,we were a bit lucky on the cold. Not much wind and I suspect the temperatures were moderated a bit by the clouds. The lack of cold was critical - it meant we could stay out for the entire, majestic sequence as the moon went from full to totally eclipsed. (Ok - I know people found it a bit chilly - but it wasn't unbearable ;-)

We watched Saturn emerge to the left of the moon shortly after the eclipse began. Much later, Regulus, just above the moon, became obvious. Around mid-eclipse we had relatively clear skies and could easily pick out the stars of the Winter Hexagon and more. Then high haze seemed to hide them until just before totality - then, despite the haze, the skies were dark enough for the clouds to emerge.

it did seem to be - as predicted - a very light eclipse. Once total the moon was still very obvious, as the sliver of white light on its edge seemed to slowly drift around the bottom and eventually to the other edge as totality ended 52 minutes after it had begun. What an elegant, majestic sight! For me, nothing brings home the combined spin of our planet - the moon climbing higher in the sky - and the rotation of the moon about us as it dives into Earth's shadow - than the stately pace of a total lunar eclipse. Stay tuned - if you missed this one there's another one is on it's way in December of 2010!