Lunar Eclipse

Paul Saunders said:

Total lunar eclipse next week on Thursday October 28th, last one visible
from Britain for some time apparently. It'll happen during the early
hours of the 28th (that's late at night on the 27th for those who aren't
used to using video recorders).

I'm afraid to give you any precise times...

Paul

Times may be given in this instance, in the slightly less precise
measurement known as SUH

"Some Unearthly Hour".

You could be forgiven for failing to focus on the eclipsed moon at
such an hour of the morning, and wondering just why your alarm clock
went off in the middle of the night.
On such occasions, I have been known to poke my head through the
curtains, and bless the damp manchester cloud blanket thus revealed,
because it means I can scurry back to my warm bed and let the Wider
Cosmos get on with its own business without me!

Paul
Leigh
Lancs

Paul Saunders <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Total lunar eclipse next week on Thursday October 28th, last one visible
from Britain for some time apparently. It'll happen during the early
hours of the 28th (that's late at night on the 27th for those who aren't
used to using video recorders).

I'm afraid to give you any precise times...

Is that the 27th/28th on the Gregorian calendar?
--
Gordon

Paul Saunders <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

Total lunar eclipse next week on Thursday October 28th, last one visible
from Britain for some time apparently. It'll happen during the early
hours of the 28th (that's late at night on the 27th for those who aren't
used to using video recorders).

I'm afraid to give you any precise times...

I am confident that if I look out tonight I will see a total eclipse of
the moon, just as there was a 95% eclipse of the sun today.
--
Gordon

Paul Richardson said:

Quoted message said:

Total lunar eclipse next week on Thursday October 28th,

Quoted message said:

Times may be given in this instance, in the slightly less precise
measurement known as SUH

"Some Unearthly Hour".

Okay then, for those with elevated hackles, here's a basic diagram of
the eclipse with times in GMT+1 (that's BST in this country);
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2004Oct28/image/TLE2004O
ct-GMT1.GIF

Here's another link with more detailed information. UT haters should
avoid clicking on this!
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/image1/Fig04-TLE2004Oct28.GIF

For those in the know, here's a patronising remark, for those who don't,
here's a helpful beginner's tip; :-)

The earth casts two degrees of shadow, the light shadow is called the
penumbra, the dark shadow is the umbra, so the moon goes a little darker
as it enters the penumbra, but the eclipse proper doesn't start until it
enters the umbra. Here's a diagram to explain it;
http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/van/qa/section/Light_and_Sound/Shadows/200201231
63918.htm

The moon starts to enter the penumbra at 1:05am BST.
The moon starts to enter the umbra at 2:14am (partial eclipse begins).
The moon will have fully entered the umbra at 3:23am (total eclipse
begins).
*The time of maximum eclipse is at 4:04am.*
Total eclipse ends at 4:45am.
Partial eclipse ends at 5:54am.
The moon exits the penumbra at 7:03am.

Total time for the event is 5 hours 58 minutes. The actual eclipse
lasts 1 hour 22 minutes.

Quoted message said:

On such occasions, I have been known to poke my head through the
curtains, and bless the damp manchester cloud blanket thus revealed,
because it means I can scurry back to my warm bed and let the Wider
Cosmos get on with its own business without me!

On such occasions I've been known to sit outside in the garden for six
hours and watch the whole thing.

It lasts a long time, so even if the weather is changeable, there may be
breaks in the clouds during the night, so you may be able to see some of
it, unless it pours down raining all night of course. If you do go to
bed try to wake up sometime between 3:30 and 4:30 to see it at it's
best.

If you haven't seen a good lunar eclipse before, you really should make
the effort, it doesn't just go dark, it goes deep red.

I won't go on and on about the photography, there a plenty of websites
that give hints and tips for photographing lunar eclipses, just do a
Google.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Paul Richardson <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

"Some Unearthly Hour".

You could be forgiven for failing to focus on the eclipsed moon at
such an hour of the morning, and wondering just why your alarm clock
went off in the middle of the night.
On such occasions, I have been known to poke my head through the
curtains, and bless the damp manchester cloud blanket thus revealed,
because it means I can scurry back to my warm bed and let the Wider
Cosmos get on with its own business without me!

Paul
Leigh
Lancs

<AOL>
Me too - and I always know that someone will be keeping an eye on
things, and will report back here if anything untoward happens.

What is infinitely more interesting is to be travelling on a dark night
and see a 'falling star'.

There is no excitement and no romance in knowing that at 03:42 (UTC, of
course), something might be visible if it ain't raining.
--
Gordon

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:17:50 +0100, Gordon <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

What is infinitely more interesting is to be travelling on a dark night
and see a 'falling star'.

There is no excitement and no romance in knowing that at 03:42 (UTC, of
course), something might be visible if it ain't raining.

I should clarify of course - I wasn't recommending my soporific
response to astronomical events in the wee small hours. It's just
human weakness!!

My recent privilege was to be on the flank of the volcano Stomboli
just north of Sicily, from about 7 - 10pm, waiting to see explosive
eruptions by night. The volcano didn't oblige, but the STARS were
absolutely stunnigly amazing. Never seen a sky like it for years.

Paul
Leigh
Lancs

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

<snip boring stuff> ;-)

| I won't go on and on about the photography, there a plenty of websites
| that give hints and tips for photographing lunar eclipses, just do a
| Google.

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at least
give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something! ;-)

| Paul

Ste

ste© said:

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at
least give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something!
;-)

Well after a few bottles of San Miguel Cerveza I suppose I could.

Rule number one: Use a daylight exposure. It's sunny on the moon, so
use a daylight exposure, like 250-f8. That's for a normally lit moon.
That's a useful thing to know actually, it's the brightness of the
subject that's important, not the brightness where you are. For
example, with flash photography the important thing is the distance from
the flash to the subject, not the distance from the camera to the
subject. The moon is lit by sunlight, so you use a sunlight exposure.
This will render the moon grey (which is its correct colour) rather than
a blown out white.

Note to myself: I really must go back to Porth yr Ogof (Caves) sometime
and play with my B option. Leave the camera shutter open while I wander
around the cave lighting up bits of it with my flashgun. Never tried
that with digital before, it would be great to be able to check the
results instantly. Previous attempts with film have either been lucky
or [censored].

Rule number two: An eclipsed moon is much darker. Pretty obvious
really. So you need brighter exposures. There are three ways of doing
this. One is a slower shutter speed - careful with this, too long and
the moon will blur - that's the biggest problem to watch out for.
Second is a wider aperture - great if you're using a lens with a wide
aperture, but not so good otherwise - unless you are using a telephoto
lens costing 5 grand or more, you probably won't be able to manage
better than f5.6. Thirdly, use a faster film (or increase the film
speed on your digital camera) - this is by far the easiest option. Sure
it's grainy, but it doesn't cost a fortune and it doesn't blur the moon.

Rule number three: Telephoto lenses blur more easily. The moon moves
(well actually it's the rotation of the earth that's the problem). The
longer your telephoto lens, the faster the relative movement (in a high
powered telescope the moon moves amazingly quickly). So the longer the
lens, the faster the shutter speed needs to be. I'm sure there's a
definite rule for this but I don't know it offhand, but I'm pretty sure
that 1 second exposures at 600mm won't hack it. It's better to
underexpose and get a dark but sharp moon, than a properly exposed
blurred moon.

What exposure? Don't know offhand (really, there are plenty of websites
that will tell you this, just Google).

My best advice is to use a digital camera. I never had this luxury in
the past. I've wasted entire rolls of film taking mostly blurred and
badly exposed shots. Digital is absolutely ideal for an eclipse because
you get instant feedback. Take the shot, if it screws up, alter your
settings and take it again. You can't do that a week later when your
film is developed! You've got six hours altogether and over an hour for
the actual eclipse, so there's plenty of time to experiment.

A word of advice for the latest Canon camera owners. Set your RAW &
jpeg settings so that the camera saves a large jpeg with the raw file.
This allows you to zoom into the picture to check the sharpness at high
magnification. Normally I set my camera to small jpeg to save storage
space, but in this instance it's worth using the large setting to be
able to check sharpness on the spot.

So...

1. Use the longest telephoto focal length you've got.

2. Make a number of test shots to determine the slowest shutter speed
you can use without blurring. You don't want the moving moon to blur,
that's the prime factor! There's probably a relationship between
shutter speed and focal length, but I don't know what it is offhand.

3. Once you know the minimum shutter speed, never go below it. As the
moon gets darker, widen the aperture. When the aperture is at max,
increase the film speed. When the film speed is at max, just accept a
darker exposure, *don't* reduce the shutter speed below the minimim
determined earlier. You can always brighten the pic later.

Of course, if you own Focus Magic you might accept a blurred moon and
try to fix it using motion focusing, but I'd recommend you try to get a
sharp moon in the first place.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

ste© said:

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

<snip boring stuff> ;-)

| I won't go on and on about the photography, there a plenty of websites
| that give hints and tips for photographing lunar eclipses, just do a
| Google.

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at least
give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something! ;-)

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/lunar-eclipse.shtml
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

Gordon said:

There is no excitement and no romance in knowing that at 03:42 (UTC,
of course), something might be visible if it ain't raining.

I disagree that there's no excitement in something just because it's
predicable. A good sunrise can be awe-inspiring, predictable or not.
As for meteor showers, they are definitely not predictable. Don't pay
any more attention to the times I gave you than you would the weather
forecast. There could be an unexpectedly interesting peak at any time
during that week. They've got it quite wrong in recent years.

As for romance, sod that...

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Phil Cook said:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/lunar-eclipse.shtml

Thanks Phil. I'm sure there are others that give more specific exposure
details, but this is still interesting.

Michael is wrong about the rarity of lunar eclipses though, we get about
two every year. Not all are visible from a specific point on earth
though. The reason I've been making a fuss about this one is that it
will be another two years or so until we see another from the UK, so
sayeth the revered Patrick Moore.

As an aside, anyone else think that Patrick is on his last legs? He
missed a recent Sky at Night (for the first time ever!) and seems to be
getting increasingly less coherent each month. He seems to be grooming
Chris Lintott to replace him. This is hopefully a premature assumption
on my part, but he can't last forever. It'll be a sad day when Patrick
finally departs.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Okay then, for those with elevated hackles, here's a basic diagram of
the eclipse with times in GMT+1 (that's BST in this country);
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/LEmono/TLE2004Oct28/image/TLE2004O
ct-GMT1.GIF

Jeeves is going to hate You. !
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, ste©
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at least
give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something! ;-)

Go back to sleep you :-)
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

ste© said:

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at
least give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something!
;-)

Well after a few bottles of San Miguel Cerveza I suppose I could.

He was KIDDING Paul -- honestly - even we could see the smiley :-) :-)

Go Camping or something, get some fresh air in your lungs - there's been
plenty of it around today. :-)
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Phil Cook
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at least
give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something! ;-)

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/lunar-eclipse.shtml

Great Phil.

Now *THAT'S* the way to respond.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Gordon
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

There is no excitement and no romance in knowing that at 03:42 (UTC, of
course), something might be visible if it ain't raining.

Lookout for falling Zulus while you're at it.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

Paul Saunders said:

ste© said:

Oh come on Paul, if you're going to post all that boring stuff, at
least give us a paragraph on the best camera settings or something!
;-)

Well after a few bottles of San Miguel Cerveza I suppose I could.

Sammy Giggles now is it? What happened to the Broon?
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

Phil Cook said:

Quoted message said:

Well after a few bottles of San Miguel Cerveza I suppose I could.

Sammy Giggles now is it? What happened to the Broon?

It's been on offer lately, and now it's all sold out!!! :-(

It wasn't me who bought it all, honest!

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Paul Saunders said:

Phil Cook said:

Quoted message said:

Well after a few bottles of San Miguel Cerveza I suppose I could.

Sammy Giggles now is it? What happened to the Broon?

It's been on offer lately, and now it's all sold out!!! :-(

It wasn't me who bought it all, honest!

I've figured out that I'm not the only one buying the Goldminer in my
local Co-Op, but between us we get through a fair amount.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"