Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Total Lunar Eclipse

Many of you know that I like to view the heavens. I am constantly amazed at the beauty outside, just over our heads! It is truly stunning what we can see if we'd just look up every now and again. Well, we had something really special happen tonight. In fact, I just saw it—it's 4:01 a.m.here. So, I had to get up a little early, but for a view like this one, it was worth it.

Before I reveal the photos I took, I want to just bring everyone up to speed. My dad called me last night just before bedtime, and reminded me there would be a total lunar eclipse (Sun lined up with earth, whose shadow blocks out the moon) happening circa 3:30 a.m. Being a die-hard amateur astronomer, I immediately set my alarm. I wasn't going to miss this. This isn't the type of event that just happens every month when we get a new moon—this happens roughly 8 times very three years (or once every 4 months for a lunar eclipse anything. But the last total lunar eclipse like this one was 2007, so it's more rare). You can learn more about lunar eclipses at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse.

Anyway, I told my dad that I would go out and photograph this total lunar eclipse. I want to stress that these photographs are unedited: raw. Without any more adieu, I give you the Total Lunar Eclipse, 21 December 2010 as viewed from Utah:



If you're less-than-impressed, that's ok. One of the requirements for "impressive" photos of a total lunar eclipse is that is has to be NOT SNOWING. Utah, you have failed, AGAIN, to cooperate with the whole weather thing! One thing that is impressive about these photos is that they are, in fact, unedited. With the moon more blocked out than normal, with ambient light ricocheting off low cloud cover, you get a LOT of local light that makes taking photos really cool. But that doesn't make up for blocking out the moon tonight, Utah. You're still on my list!

For the rest of the world, here's what God gave us this morning:

This combo of pictures taken in Manassas, Va., shows the moon in different stages of a total lunar eclipse on Dec., 21, 2010. The eclipse is also falling on the same day as the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere a rare occurrence that hasn't happened in 372 years.

This photo is comes from a story on NPR titled, "Moonwatchers Treated to Total Lunar Eclipse." It should have read, "Most Moonwatchers Treated..."

Bah.
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2 comments:

  1. ¡Vieve!December 21, 2010 at 9:16 AM

    This snow has failed me in every aspect. I'm so angry at it.

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  2. Scott and SvetlanaDecember 21, 2010 at 11:18 AM

    I'm usually not very interested in this kind of stuff, but Scott does. So yesterday I saw on Yahoo.com a little article or I should say a reminder about a Total Lunar Eclipse. Scott got his camcorder out to film it. I haven't watched it but I guess it was good, since we didn't have any weather problems besides a bit of clouds and lots of wind.
    I love snow pictures you have, we don't have any snow, so you might get a white Christmas and we'll get only brown. :(

    ReplyDelete