Lunar Eclipse 5/15-16/2022

  There is a school of thought when it comes to eclipses that 'it's solar or nothing', but a lunar eclipse has many advantages.  

  Most importantly, a lunar eclipse is visible everywhere that is the moon is above the horizon, as opposed to a solar eclipse's path of totality that typically has a width of around 100 miles or less. 

  Secondly the totality of a solar eclipse can last only 7.5 minutes for a particular location while a lunar eclipse can be up to 1 hour and 45 minutes in duration. 

  Last night's lunar eclipse lasted nearly an hour and a half which was fortunate for me since clouds blocked the whole moon for the first half hour of totality.  But patience paid off as the clouds parted somewhat and the rest of the show could be leisurely viewed through varying degrees of wispy clouds.
 

Partial Lunar Eclipse 11/19/2021

   The longest partial lunar eclipse in over 600 years took place early on this cloudy windy morning.

   I woke up around 3 AM and could see that there might be some breaks in the heavy overcast.  The photo below taken when I stepped out on my deck almost an hour before the peak of the eclipse, shows the moon more than halfway covered by the Earth's shadow.

    There was a brisk wind gusting up to 30 mph on the deck side of the house so I grabbed a tripod and went around to the front of the house to get some shelter from the breezes.

   The wide-angle shots below show the near-totally eclipsed moon among the star field in the constellation Taurus. I was hoping some of the red in the moon would show up in the photos but the color got washed out because of the long-exposure needed for the stars to appear.  

   Of course I can't step out of my house alone at 3:30 in the morning, as my dog Nico followed me out.  I gained an appreciation of her night vision when she dropped a tennis ball at my feet. An impromptu game of  fetch commenced, illuminated only by the cloud-reflected lights from the power plant over a mile away.  The low lighting didn't prevent her from short-hopping grounders on the driveway. 

Sunrise Solar Eclipse 6/10/2021

 

Partial Solar Eclipse  with Old Presque Isle Lighthouse

  Though the actual sunrise was obscured by a narrow thick band of clouds, I was able to get some photos of the crescent sun as it rose a little higher.  

Frustrating band of clouds

Clouds thinned to the point that they enhanced the color

Solar filter required for the clear patch of sky

Lunar Eclipse 1/21/2019

   Winter weather tried to dissuade me from viewing the total lunar eclipse last night but it's going to have to try a little harder next time.  When the eclipse began the temperature was 5 F and conditions were both clear and snowing.  The light snow must have been blowing in off the lake while mostly clear skies were present at my location

Black Hole Sun

    In the two days that I spent in Eastern Oregon leading up to Monday's total eclipse, I asked a few locals where they intended to view the eclipse.  I was kind of surprised that some of them planned to view from their homes just outside of the path of totality.  Although 99.7% rounds up to 100%  and that is adequate in most situations, it doesn't compare when it comes to eclipses.

99.7%

    When 99.7% of the Sun is covered you're still looking at the Sun.  When 100% of the Sun is covered you're able to see the elusive corona and prominences the filaments of particles attempting to escape the solar surface.

100%

     The eclipsed Sun is comparable in brightness to a Full Moon.

    During the 1 minute 56 seconds of totality I was frantically operating and adjusting 2 cameras, one with a 500mm lens and the other wide angle 28mm lens.  During the fleeting moment of the 'diamond-ring' effect as the last (first) ray of sunlight disappears (appears)  at the beginning (end) of totality, the Sun and Moon combination looks like a ring of corona with one bright point shining like a diamond. At those opportunities I should have been manning the telephoto equipped camera, Instead I only (accidentally) caught it with the wide field camera.

  Crop of photo above shows a diffraction obscured 'Diamond-ring' effect.

     A little longer exposure shows the sparsely illuminated foreground during totality.

   A crop of that photo shows the star Regulus to the lower left of the eclipse. Click on photo below to see it.

   Another neat effect observable during the partial phases before and after totality is that light passing through a small aperture reveals an image of the light source.  Among our group of eclipse watchers was my niece Danielle who's sunhat projected a multitude of mini eclipses on her shoulder. 

Total Eclipse 8/21/2017

    Disclaimer : These photos do no justice to the spectacle created by the Moon blotting out the late morning Sun.

  It started innocently enough as a small notch formed on the upper right edge of the Sun.

   The bite got bigger....

....until our local star showed a fat crescent.

   It progress until only a sliver remained

    After the last ray of sun shined through a deep crater on the Moon's rim creating a diamond ring effect(not pictured), the elusive solar corona appeared.  A close look at the photo below reveals a red promenience at the same position that the moon's transit started.

  A longer exposure shows the star Regulus (circled) to the lower left of the eclipsed Sun.

He had to stay home because he couldn't pass the eclipse safety test.

Lunar Eclipse 10/8/2014

   Left for work over an hour early to try to photograph the lunar eclipse.  Took the first photo as I was loading up the car, before the eclipse started.

5:06 AM

  The first place I looked to set the photo gear was a lakeside park on the shore of America's Great Lake, but 30 mph winds had the beach sand blowing and drifting across the parking lot.  Plan B was to set up a little closer to work, a decision that cost me photos of the beginning of the eclipse, but allowed me to get the more important totality shots right up to the time I needed to be through the gate.

5:32 AM

5:50 AM

6:08 AM

6:10 AM

6:29 AM

  An added bonus to this lunar show was that the planet Uranus was just over a half of a degree from the Moon at the time it was immersed in the Earth's shadow.  It was the first time I was able to photograph the 7th planet from the Sun.  Insert your own middle school joke here.....

   Earlier in the week I took some practice sunset shots for the partial solar eclipse coming up on the 23rd.

leaning light

cropped image