STARLOG

Lunar Eclipse

January 21, 2000

All times are Central Standard Time (UT +6)

Tonight's observing session was mainly to be the moon, in anticipation of the total lunar eclipse. The sky was mostly overcast all day, with the sun peeking out occasionally during the afternoon hours. About 6:00p, I observed the moon rising over the housetops, veiled in a thin layer of clouds.

The bright moon combined with the haze and clouds resulted in a small "ring" around the moon. I was getting disappointed in how the day was turning out. But I consoled myself in the fact that at least I'd be able to watch Earth's shadow transit the moon, if not see the reddish hue.

I took another look outside about 8:00p. T minus 1 hour before the eclipse. Was it my imagination, or did the moon look brighter? Quickly scanning the rest of the sky, I noted that I could see some stars beginning to show through! The sky was clearing off! Maybe this would be a good night after all!

Shortly after 9:00p now. Looking out my bedroom window, I noticed that the lower-left corner of the moon was just beginning to look like it was slightly mishapen. I have to give Chris Marriott credit, his SkyMap program was within a couple of minutes of being right on target for the start of the eclipse. At this point, I was still debating whether or not to take my telescope outside and brave the cooling temperatures.

At about 9:45p, the moon is about 2/3 covered in shadow and is definitely taking on an orange-brown hue. The good news is that now the sky is almost completely clear. The bad news is that this means the temperatures will start dropping steadily now. I decide that the opportunity is too great to let it slip, and begin packing up my telescope for transport outside. After all, this will be the last total lunar eclipse of the millenium from my location.

So I quickly grab my scope, bundle up, grab a thermos of hot chocolate, and head outside, where I set up in my 2-man dome tent that I have rigged up as a portable observatory (see http://www.iolaks.com/softech/observe.htm for more info about that). The moon is now at about 90% totality and darkening fast. Wow, the vivid color transition from the lower-left corner (dark brown-red) to the upper-right corner (still shining white) is incredible! I think this is the best lunar eclipse I have ever witnessed.

I view the last few minutes before totality with my refractor at low power (35x), which gives a good complete view of the moon in the eyepiece and allows the color contrasts to be better seen than with the naked eye.

Around 10:00p (I keep forgetting to look at my watch), the last of the bright white glow of the moon has disappeared, leaving a dark brown moon. It's amazing how much smaller the moon appears when it isn't shining like a searchlight in the sky.

What's this at the edge of my eyepiece? It looks like...yes...it's a star! In the same field of view as the moon! And now more are appearing! One of them, which I later identified as SAO 97665, is listed as a mag. 8.4 star and is only about a moon's radius away. The seeing must be pretty good by now, for my cheap department-store scope to pick up such a faint star so easily. I'm not even having to use averted vision on it.

After trying to see how many features I can still make out on the darkened moon for a few more minutes, I turn my scope toward nearby M44 (The Beehive Cluster), which easily resolves into several doubles and triples. I'm still in awe of the fact that an hour earlier, the moon was so bright that I couldn't even spot Castor and Pollux in this part of the sky, and now I was able to see stars as dim as mag. 9.

For the next hour or so, I jumped back and forth between viewing the moon and slowly sweeping the telescope across this region of the sky. Then I wandered back over to the moon for good and tried to watch the moment when I could glimpse the first piece of unshadowed lunar surface.

The lower-left edge of the moon began to get brighter, which caused the top edge of the moon to be even less noticeable than it was during totality. Finally, a small white sliver appeared. Due to the darkness of the rest of the moon, it was almost blindingly bright.

As the minutes ticked away, I was able to make out more and more details of the moon. I continued watching until the moon was about 1/3 out of eclipse, then decided that I really didn't want to catch cold, so packed it in for the night and watched the rest of the eclipse from my bedroom window.

All in all, it made for an excellent night of observing, and it's not often that you can see the Beehive when a full moon is in Cancer.