Winter Solstice Eclipse
Late last night/early this morning there was a lunar eclipse (where the earth’s shadow passes over the surface of the moon). I hadn’t expected to stay up for it, since the sky had been mostly cloudy all day and evening here. However, not long before the eclipse was supposed to start, I happily discovered that the sky was mostly clear (just a little hazy at times), so I ended up staying up to watch a little over half of the event after all.
Of course, as an astronomy nerd, I’ve seen plenty of partial and full lunar eclipses before, but I still think they’re neat, and never pass up an opportunity to try to watch at least part of one. Lunar (and solar) eclipses themselves are actually not rare at all (like the media would have you believe); eclipses like this one are visible at least every couple of years in North America. However, what makes this particular celestial event kind of special is that it’s the first total lunar eclipse to occur on the Winter Solstice since the year 1638!
From beginning to end, the eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Where I am, in the central part of the U.S., the eclipse lasted from about 12:33am through 4:01am, and totality (the time when the earth’s shadow completely covers the moon) lasted about 72 minutes. I called it quits a little over half-way through (around 2:30am), because my fingers and toes were frozen. But then I ended up catching most of the rest of it via the internet while I uploaded images from my camera. The last half of the eclipse looked like the first half, just in reverse.
Below are a few of my photos of the eclipse. As I said, the sky was a little hazy at times, so they’re not the greatest, but I had fun taking them anyway. It was quite chilly outside, so at first I just bundled up and went out on the front porch with the camera every now and then to take a few shots and then came back in when I started shivering too much to focus the camera properly. However, eventually the moon got dark enough that I gave in and stayed outside, setting up my tripod in an attempt to get less-blurry images with long exposure to capture the deep rusty-red color of the earth’s shadow on the moon. (I was happy to see this color appear, because sometimes it’s just a disappointing gray).
Happy Winter Solstice!
Of course, as an astronomy nerd, I’ve seen plenty of partial and full lunar eclipses before, but I still think they’re neat, and never pass up an opportunity to try to watch at least part of one. Lunar (and solar) eclipses themselves are actually not rare at all (like the media would have you believe); eclipses like this one are visible at least every couple of years in North America. However, what makes this particular celestial event kind of special is that it’s the first total lunar eclipse to occur on the Winter Solstice since the year 1638!
From beginning to end, the eclipse lasted about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. Where I am, in the central part of the U.S., the eclipse lasted from about 12:33am through 4:01am, and totality (the time when the earth’s shadow completely covers the moon) lasted about 72 minutes. I called it quits a little over half-way through (around 2:30am), because my fingers and toes were frozen. But then I ended up catching most of the rest of it via the internet while I uploaded images from my camera. The last half of the eclipse looked like the first half, just in reverse.
Below are a few of my photos of the eclipse. As I said, the sky was a little hazy at times, so they’re not the greatest, but I had fun taking them anyway. It was quite chilly outside, so at first I just bundled up and went out on the front porch with the camera every now and then to take a few shots and then came back in when I started shivering too much to focus the camera properly. However, eventually the moon got dark enough that I gave in and stayed outside, setting up my tripod in an attempt to get less-blurry images with long exposure to capture the deep rusty-red color of the earth’s shadow on the moon. (I was happy to see this color appear, because sometimes it’s just a disappointing gray).
Happy Winter Solstice!
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