Lunar Eclipse - Aug 28, 2007

There was a 90 minute total lunar eclipse which happened in the early morning hours of August 28, 2007.  The sky was relatively clear for us here in Victoria, and we were favoured with views of the eclipse from beginning to end:

	Partial eclipse begin 1:51am PDT
	Total eclipse begin 2:52am PDT
	Total eclipse end 4:23am PDT
	Partial eclipse end 5:24am PDT

 Here are some reports from our members and photographs they took:

 

2007.08.28-LunarEclipse (161k Flash movie of still images) Here's a slide show of the view from Mt. Tolmie. Joe and several other folks were there, along with a videographer from A Channel. And we had the side entertainment of watching the Saanich police convincing some kids that getting rowdy was a bad idea. All in all, it was a good night. Warm, good seeing, and some great results. The images posted are all great! Jim Cliffe		Lunar Eclipse Interview - Howard Markson from A-Channel interviews Joe Carr about the upcoming Lunar Elcipse Howard Markson from A Channel interviewed Joe Carr and J.J. Kavelaars the day before the eclipse.
		Zenfolio RASC Victoria Centre Lunar Eclipse 2007 Collection - more photos from our members
It turned out to be quite the show this morning after early haze from the evening before. I debated having to carry all my equipment around so after reviewing the altitude of the Moon through the duration of the eclipse I saw that I could photograph almost all of it from my cul-de-sac. In fact I only lost the very last 10 minutes as it crept in to the trees. This is one of the rare occasions I got to observe while photographing through the telescope now that I usually use the MiniBorg 45ED as my finder and guiding scope. I was absolutely amazed by the depth of the red colour. I don't remember ever seeing it so dark red. Given the exposure at totality it was very dark. The view of the stars around the eclipsed Moon at totality were stunning. The totality images contain many mag 7 and 8 stars. They're cut off in the composite image. Camera: Fuji Finepix S2 Sensor ISO: 400 Telescope: Televue NP101is 540mm f/5.4 Exposures: Full Moon 1/500 second; Beginning of Total Eclipse 2 seconds; Totality 16 seconds. David Lee	I observed the whole event from beside the riding ring, out here in Metchosin. I was listening to late night talk radio from San Francisco and people kept phoning in their reports of observing the eclipse. It was almost like I wasn't observing alone. The same thing went on a couple of weeks ago during the Perseids. Only on that occasion the calls might be punctuated by oohs and wows as a particularly good one went by. Anyway, back to last night. At totality it was so dark that the Milky way was clearly evident spanning the sky. With my 6 inch dob and the low power eyepiece that I was using to observe the eclipse I could make out both east and west sides of the Veil Nebula with the assistance of an OIII filter. I also used my son's new Rebel XTi attached to my 80mm Zenithstar to take images. I took one about every 5-10 minutes. If I knew what I was doing I could probably string them together into one continuous movie kind of thing. I couldn't get about the last 10 minutes as my objective was totally fogged over. Here is my uncropped shot of totality. I know the stars in it are a bit elongated but that's because I was using a non tracking mount. I left it uncropped to show how faint stars were clearly eveident right up to beside the Moon. With the 6 inch dob there were many stars in the field with the Moon. I know the focus is a bit soft but I had taken the camera off to do some wide field shots with just a camera lens and couldn't quite get it right again. I'm just working out the bugs on how to use a digital camera. Bill Weir		The beautiful scene of Victoria, the harbour, Juan de Fuca Strait and the Olympic Mountains in the USA illuminated with the partially eclipsed Moon. The fully eclipsed Moon sitting over Victoria at 3:45am. This composite image shows the eclipse event as it progressed.  Note the small fully eclipsed Moon between the 3rd and 4th composite images - part of the background image. Jim Cliffe and Nelson Walker joined me on top of Mt. Tolmie to observe the lunar eclipse from start to finish. It was a gorgeous evening - virtually no wind and not too cold.  It turned out that quite a crowd gathered as totality time approached. I was amazed at the difference of the colour of the totally-eclipsed Moon this time as compared with the Lunar Eclipse of Oct 27, 2004. This eclipsed Moon was more of a sooty red, whereas the 2004 version was a much brighter and richer red.  The digital photos of this event show more enriched colours than we observed with our eyes. Joe Carr

Resources

	Lunar Eclipse on August 28th - SkyandTelescope.com - all the observing information you need for this lunar eclipse
	NASA - Exploding Lunar Eclipse - flashes from meteoroids may be visible as they crash into the Moon
	Lunar Eclipse "How to's" - an article by David Lee giving hints on photographing, but don't use the 2004 observing times quoted!