Lunar Eclipse.

[curiouswombat]

Beneath the cut is a photo I just took out in our back yard, about an hour ago, which proves that, yes, the moon does look red during a lunar eclipse! Although to be honest it didn't look quite that red to the naked eye.

Comments

[desdemonaspace]

Gorgeous! It looks like a little red gumdrop.

Thanks for posting this.

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

Crap, I completely forgot about this! What a muppet I am.

[beanbeans.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing!

[modillian.livejournal.com]

Aww, neato! I was so excited to hear I could see it in Europe, but it's far too cloudy and lacking a skyline in Paris. Bah, I'll catch the next one!

[kathyh]

We had a wonderful view of it in S. London, but we were out tonight so I didn't have the camera handy. Many thanks for sharing this.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the moon looks bigger than that - but tonight it looked quite small. It was quite a fascinating effect though.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Might still be partial - run and look!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I was so glad that my daughter mentioned that she was just hanging out in her room looking out the window at it.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It's lovely and clear here - and fairly open, which helped.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It's such a nice clear night as well - last time I think it was pretty overcast, so this was a treat!

[stretfordditto.livejournal.com]

Smashing pic. I tried to take one and just ended up with a pinprick on a black square.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Oh! Very, very cool!

Thank you for posting this!! Odds are we won't get to see any of it, since we're pretty overcast.

[manoah.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping we can see something of it tonight as well. The Spare was just asking me about eclipses. Thanks for sharing!

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

My dad got a good pic through binoculars. I'll have to see if I can post it tomorrow.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hello! Thank you, I was quite impressed myself. It is only a little Sony Cybershot camera - nothing mega.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It is a lovely clear night - last night would have been hopeless but tonight is lovely.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

My pleasure.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

That would be really good - mine is just taken by balancing my little camera on the old steps out in the yard - extra magnification would be brilliant.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I remember one year when I was in college, we (as in the university's Astronomy Club) went out "chasing" the moon during a total lunar eclipse, since the area where we were living in was completely overcast. We ended up driving about two hours southwest, into the desert, before we finally found a good spot to view it... but it was worth it!

Of course, the other problem around here this time is that it's still daytime -- I hadn't been entirely sure when it was starting and ending... but it wasn't going to be over any time that would be visible for us, overcast or not!

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

It was red to the naked eye at first but then it changed to a dull brownish red. That's a great photo. You can judge how small the moon looked by the comparison with the tree branch. It started out quite large at moonrise, almost like a Harvest Moon because it was close to the horizon when I first saw it.

We're just a bunch of geeks really aren't we? Geeks of all shapes, sizes and ages but brought together by a common interest - I find that so lovely.

[moss6886.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Love the reflection off the branches...

[jerusha]

Very cool! I've never been in the right place at the right time to catch an eclipse.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Very nice. We couldn't see a thing here because of cloud cover.

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing! It's been a long time since I've been able to see a lunar eclipse. But I do remember it being red.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Neat! Unfortunately even if it wasn't totally clouded over here I'm too far west to have seen it!

[evilawyer.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[averageshmoe.livejournal.com]

Beautiful photo.

I still don't have my regular computer back, but after being in the repair shop for a month I finally got Dell to get going on repairing it.

Amazing what can happen when you let someone know that you want the correct spelling of their name for the benefit of the State's Attorney General's Office of Consumer Affairs.

pgavigan

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

The moon was huge and golden and looked as though a bite had been swiped from it. Altogether odd looking but beautiful. I had expected red, but it wasn't.

[keswindhover.livejournal.com]

It really didn't go very red here - but it did go amazingly three dimensional. You normally see the moon as a disc - but it was like a beach ball up there!

And your pic is way better than nay of mine, but I'm still glad I went out to the park away from the light pollution and got a good look.

[spikereader.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad someone managed to get a picture of it - my camera just took pictures of blackness with no orangey moon in sight.

It was such a fabuously clear night to watch the moon get smaller and smaller though.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Full eclipse was about 10.45pm - so it would have been early/mid afternoon for you - next time it might be over you and if so I wish you a bright clear night!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I have to admit it wasn't quite so blood red to the naked eye. It occured to me after the first attempt which was a small red blob on black as my camera couldn't cope with the stars at all, that if I moved to get a branch of my tree in it would make more sense out of the red blob!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I was so glad that it occured to me to try and get the moon and a branch together - it has worked better than i could have hoped for to be honest!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

We had an almost complete lunar one a few years ago and the darkness was like dusk at mid-day - you could see why the ancients were so impressed by it. But I think I like lunar ones better than solar ones - it's being able to just look at it without remembering all sorts or eye-protection, I think.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It was just the absolutely perfect night - D-d says it was equally clear in York as well - and kathyh says it was clear in London, so it sounds as if most of the British Isles had a clear night - an unusual occurence in winter!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It is a wonderful effect - it must have seemed such an amazing portent to ancient peoples who did not understand what was happening.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It was good fortune to have a clear night when we were in the right place - and a daughter who reminded me via IM to go out and look at it!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I impressed myself when I down-loaded it!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the compliment - I impressed myself there!

I wondered where you were - I was hoping it was just a computer problem.

Amazing what can happen when you let someone know that you want the correct spelling of their name for the benefit of the State's Attorney General's Office of Consumer Affairs.

Perfect!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It only got to red at the point where the eclipse was almost total - I mentioned that it should be red to D-d about half an hour before the total point, and she said 'What redness? Are you sure?' But then about ten minutes later she said it was starting to look a bit red, and her photo did show red by the total point, although not quite as red as mine did.

I have a feeling that the perfect place to see it would have been somewhere in the Atlantic - when moonrise was about 10.00 GMT so it would be that big golden globe with the shadow over it, and then a big red globe.

It might have been pretty spectacular in Nova Scotia - well providing it wasn't raining.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

D-d says it wasn't very red in York either, and to be honest it wasn't as red in real life as it was in the picture.

The photo was good luck to be honest - it occured to me, after a couple of attemps, that (a)a branch would help - and I do have a tree (it is a totally unproductive pear tree - but at least came in useful for this!) and (b)I couldn't hold the camera still enough by hand, but could just pull the steps over, and lean my arm on them.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

On the display on the camera I could just see a tiny blob of light - I just hoped to get it in frame! It was the perfect night for watching it though, wasn't it?

[fluffybkitty.livejournal.com]

That's a great picture.

It was at about the same stage when I was lucky enough to see it, but I never thought to get a camera.

It really did look small, didn't it, almost eerily so (or that could just be me!)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and yes - I thought it was a shame that it was definitely a 'small moon' night.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

Wow! I love the red moon! Great picture!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you - it was quite stunning to watch.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Good job, that's a difficult photo to get. We missed it here -- had still another snowstorm going through at the time.