Lunar Eclipse Monday September 28th

Hi Folks

A summary

of my efforts from yesterday

Some excellent pictures from Monday morning. Was hard work staying up, but worth it. A lot of people have commented on how dark the eclipse was. There are a couple of theories on spaceweather - 1 It was a perigee moon so the moon passes deeper into the shadow, 2 Volcanic activity - a volcano called Culbaco erupted in April. It produced distinctive sunsets in the southern hemisphere and could be the reason.

www.spaceweather.com/

The bad news is the next one is not until July 27th 2018. The good news,the timings of it are a lot more sensible. We will miss max eclipse by around 7 mins. The moon will rise "eclipsed" just before 21:30 and stay in the umbra until 22:13, it is fully over at 23:19. The sun will be setting around 21:34.

Hi everyone,

Many thanks for sharing all the reports and great photos of the lunar eclipse. It was terrific we got to see it from start to finish with conditions near perfect. We have to wait until the year 2029 (IIRC) to next see a total lunar eclipse from beginning to end from Ireland. There are a few others before then which we'll see some aspects of as Neill mentions above.

Many thanks to Kevin Smith, the Meath Astronomy Group, and Rathbeggan Lakes staff who hosted a lunar eclipse party in the County Meath adventure centre. It's a lovely site and allowed us get great views of the eclipse. The emergence of fainter stars when the Moon was dimmed during eclipse was quite dramatic. Fred Schaff, in his Sky & Telescope column, likens it to a second nightfall which is a wonderful comparison.

I too was surprised by how dark the eclipse was to the unaided eye. Also, through the 10x50mm binoculars I could see the leading edge of the Earth's shadow appeared as a thin grey-blue band then brightening ever so slightly before merging into the deeper rust-brown of the umbra itself. Essentially we were seeing the shadow of the thin layer of Earth's atmosphere preceding the shadow of Earth's bulk.

I also though the umbral shadow was slightly skewed the first few minutes of the eclipse and not quite a perfect arc. That effect disappeared though as the shadow advanced further across the disk. It was nice seeing the major craters being enveloped in darkness -- especially Tycho, as it's rays were still visible crossing the rest of the still illuminated lunar disk.

As with recent eclipses, I produced a (toy) bow and arrow and fired a few flaming arrows Moon-ward to try rekindle its diminished light! All part of re-enacting what the ancients practiced

John

September Full Perigee Harvest Moon - a progression drawing toward the Total Lunar Eclipse
September 27th 2015
19:55 UT - 22:01 UT
Pastels on black paper
200 mm telescope
32 mm eyepiece
Magnification 37X
Bray Co Wicklow





Full Perigee Harvest Moon Total Lunar Eclipse - finished drawing.
Colour added naked eye at 03:29 Local Time 02:29 UT September 28th 2015
Very damp conditions - Very dark eclipse Danjon scale 2 Deep Red / Rust Eclipse
Bray Co Wicklow

Hello, all.
I would like to thank Kevin Smith for organising the Total Lunar Eclipse Party at the Rathbeggan Lakes on the edge of County Meath. The barbecue was an excellent idea; as was supporting the charity Barnardos.
I brought down my William Optics 158mm apochromatic refractor and viewed the eclipse at 40X for the entire night. Well before the starting time of 1st contact at 2.08 am, we could all see that there was some form of a shadow on the Moon at 1.55 am. Some of us were discussing last night at the IAS meeting -could the umbra have had an early start as it covered the Moon before 2.08? Or was it simply a thickening of the penumbral shadow before the umbra came on fully? Please come back to me on this question with any opinions.
Anyway, it was great fun following the Earth's shadow slowly covering the lunar surface as time went on. Before Totality occurred at 3.11 am, I took the opportunity to check timings as to when various craters were occulted by the Earth's shadow: Plato: 2.30. Tycho: 2.44. Proclus: 2.56. Messier A and B: 2.59. Langrenus: 3.06. 5 minutes later: Totality: 3.11.
It was also nice to observe the 3 seas surrounding Mare Crisium preceding totality. Mare Anguis was a splendid sight on the northeast side of Mare Crisium. Its translation is the Serpent Sea, and I must say it did look like a curving snake -stunning! The other 2 seas were Mare Undarum and Mare Spumans. Also to the west of Spumans was my first time observation of Sinus Successus. Such a feature was aptly observed during a successful observation of a Total Lunar Eclipse!! I reckon this eclipse had a Danjon Luminosity Scale of about 2. Because the Moon was dipping below the centre line of the Earth's shadow, it was lovely to see the southern part of the Moon quite a bit brighter than the northern part.
The end of totality occurred right on time at 4.25 am. It was truly spectacular to see the very bright western side pure white in colour.
I will always remember the year of 2015 for the fact that I observed a Total Lunar Eclipse and a Total Solar Eclipse (which I observed back on March 20th). I wonder if I will ever achieve that again? I don't think so.
It was also great to meet up with Charlie, Roy Stewart, Stephen and Mick. I had plenty of conversations with many others including Ken and Paul (Lunartic). It was good to chat with John Flannery too. I was sorry Michael Murphy was not present.

Clear skies,
Aubrey.

flt158 wrote: Well before the starting time of 1st contact at 2.08 am, we could all see that there was some form of a shadow on the Moon at 1.55 am.

Spot on Aubrey, by the time I had set up it was 2.04 am and I was a bit disappointed to see the eclipse already well underway; the pic below taken at 2.05 shows the darkening. I had not known until Monday morning that the penumbra would be visible before the stated onset of the partial phase; I can't clearly recall the same effect in previous eclipses -


Finbarr.