Saturday, June 26, 2021
My Images of the Total Lunar Eclipse of 26 May 26, 2021.
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| The Earths Umbra, the darkest part of Earths shadow advancing over the moon. This is 19:24 10 minutes after the eclipse starts | 19:45 just over 30 minutes into the eclipse and almost half the Moon covered. Cloud clone and go ut good view of he eclipse still. | 20:49, 1 Minute after maximum totality. The Moon lows a dull red in scattered earth light. initially visible through the thin cloud, eventually the cloud became too thick to se the last of totallity. |
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| 21:25 Near 30 minute after the end of totality the cloud clears for a bit and I catch the first sliver to the illuminated Moon with the diffuse earth light. | 22:00.The Moon is still playing hide and see with the clouds. 22 minutes away fom the end of the eclipse. | 22:10, just 12 minutes from the end, aftr this the clouds and encroaching drizzle finally put an end to the show. |
The Night of the Wednesday, May 26 was the night of first total lunar eclipse in Australia since 2018. This was also a perigee Moon.
It was of course cloudy, but intermittent cloud that allowed a view of the Moon. I set up both telescopes set up (the 8" Newtonian with tracking and the 4" Newtonian non-tracking). And friends and neighbors, as well as the family joined me in the cold to watch to progress of the eclipse. Beers and hot tea and coffee circulated as the glowing sliver of Moon diminished ad the reddish earth shine began to dominate.
The images taken here were using Xperia Mobile phone attached to 25 mm Plossl lens on the 8" guided scope. Exposure ranged fro ISO-200 for 1/4000 second to iso 1600 and 1 second depending of eclipse depth and cloud cover.
We got to see totality in all its glory through thin cloud, then the cloud thickened and everyone went home. Well except me, as I was home, but I had another cuppa and waited to see if the cloud cleared.
It did and I was able to get more shots in before the cloud finally won and the drizzle started, with the resultant dash to get the scopes under cover. All in all an excellent eclipse.
The entire eclipse sequence as one image
Below is animation of the eclipse sequence, a little wobbly but rather nice.
| animation |
Unexpected occultation of of the 6.4 magnitude star HIP 79788. Normally a full moon would be too bright to see the occultation of the relatively dim star, but this turned out to be quite easy to follow.
Labels: astrophotography, eclipse, Moon, perigee
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