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Full Lunar Eclipse Feb 20/21 / Earth picture
bjb
post Feb 7 2008, 10:26 PM
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I see we have a full lunar eclipse coming on Feb 20/21 (depending where you live).

I know that even during a full eclipse the Moon is still visible with a coppery hue, due to the refraction of light around the Earth.

Now that we have a bunch of probes in orbit of the Moon, is there any plan / is it possible to take an image of the Earth from the Moon during totality? (or has this already been done?)

I would think that a picture of the Earth surrounded by a red ring would be amazing!
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brellis
post Feb 7 2008, 10:32 PM
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I read somewhere that it will be possible to see both the setting sun and the rising orange moon in Los Angeles that evening. I'm curious how high you have to be to get that view - it might be the perfect time to visit Griffith Observatory!
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ugordan
post Feb 7 2008, 10:44 PM
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QUOTE (bjb @ Feb 7 2008, 11:26 PM) *
Now that we have a bunch of probes in orbit of the Moon, is there any plan / is it possible to take an image of the Earth from the Moon during totality? (or has this already been done?)

Now that sounds like a perfect job for Kaguya's HDTV camera. Depending on the totality duration the numbers might not work out, but my hunch tells me Kaguya should be able to witness at least one Earthrise/set if the totality is over 1 hr in duration.

That ought to be a spectacular sight, a brilliant orange ring of light rising over a dark, blood-red lunar horizon. I wonder what the topography would look like at that phase and lightning intensity. Certainly sounds like an awesome shot to take if available.


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FordPrefect
post Feb 7 2008, 10:56 PM
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Interesting thought! In the past I was too wondering how a total lunar eclipse would look from the moon. Let's cross the fingers Kaguya will be able to take some (stunning?) HDTV shots of this event. Though the timeline is pretty tight, especially when considering that Kaguya needs about 120 minutes for one revolution.

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DDAVIS
post Feb 7 2008, 11:24 PM
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>I read somewhere that it will be possible to see both the setting sun and the rising orange moon in Los Angeles that evening.

And what a sight! It looks like the Moon will just be entering the inner dark shadow as it rises.

>I'm curious how high you have to be to get that view - it might be the perfect time to visit Griffith Observatory!

Griffith might be nice, but I don't recall if the mountains at the observatory block the eastern horizon. I recall hiking to a lookout point a couple miles east of the Observatory when trying to see the clouded out Annular eclipse and we were looking down on it against the city background. I would at any rate suggest getting away from the city lights as much as possible. I fear that only the latter portion of totality will be seen in or close to a night time sky from Southern California. (I am in Palm Springs)

I love Lunar eclipses, the subtle colors visible inside the Earth shadow can be seen by the human eye better than what all but the most dedicated photographic efforts can record. I think rapidly shot RGB filtered grayscale images should do the job but practically all film and most digital images I have seen render the shadows as little more than a garish red orange. I have in the past 30 years of taking down color observations at one time or another seen muted examples of color from the entire spectrum within the umbra region. I have seen some video images which do surprisingly well despite the limited exposure latitude inherent to that medium.

A summary of my observations of the last such eclipse can be seen at the top of this page:

http://www.donaldedavis.com/BM07WEB/BM07page2.html

Earlier Lunar Eclipse observations are at the bottom of this page:

http://www.donaldedavis.com/2003NEW/ASTROOBS2.html
This starts with a made-for-print reproduction oil painting exaggerating the colors, and later digital efforts aspiring to capture a visual impression on the screen.

Don
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NGC3314
post Feb 8 2008, 05:54 PM
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QUOTE (bjb @ Feb 7 2008, 04:26 PM) *
Now that we have a bunch of probes in orbit of the Moon, is there any plan / is it possible to take an image of the Earth from the Moon during totality? (or has this already been done?)


Surveyor III was able to get some variously filtered images of an eclipse in 1966. One color-composite version is shown here. Of course, HDTV would be Really Cool if it can be done...
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edstrick
post Feb 9 2008, 06:44 AM
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"Surveyor III was able to get some variously filtered images of an eclipse in 1966. One color-composite version is shown"

A couple years <or decades, it feels like now> I posted here a considerably improved pair of the Surveyor 3 images, reassembled from good quality black and white color separations published in JPL TR series reports on Surveyor.

The image linked to had massive overexposure saturating part of the bright limb and "blooming" of the overexposed image on the vidicon detector. The original NASA Press Release image was horrible, even given that data's blooming problem.

The other image was actually the much better image but was never press released in color. In my reconstruction, you can see parts of the faint blue ring of upper atmospheric scattering of sunlight with orange-red blobs where gaps in clouds on the limb let direct sunlight get refracted around the limb to reach the camera.

I've tried poking around the archives here and I don't find the post. It's not on my internetting computer at the moment, so I'll have to dig for it.
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brellis
post Feb 9 2008, 07:07 AM
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NASA Archive pic
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dvandorn
post Feb 21 2008, 04:04 AM
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Everyone, quickly, get on your knees and pray! Some great evil monster has swallowed up the Moon!

rolleyes.gif

All seriousness aside, it's a really visually stunning eclipse. I don't have the proper imaging equipment, or I'd take a pic and share it. As of about five minutes ago, there was a nice bright white rind along the southeast limb, and the rest of the face of the Moon was colored a lovely shade of copper... *grin*...

-the other Doug


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“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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ilbasso
post Feb 21 2008, 04:17 AM
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Strange coincidence - Apollo 12 witnessed a solar eclipse while carrying back from the Moon the camera of Surveyor III, which had also photographed a solar eclipse.

Beautiful eclipse tonight! I hope lots of folks got to see it.



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Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com
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laurele
post Feb 21 2008, 06:39 AM
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"Beautiful eclipse tonight! I hope lots of folks got to see it."


Here in New Jersey, we really lucked out with the weather tonight. The astronomy club I belong to scheduled an eclipse viewing event, and when we first arrived, there were a lot of clouds, and the moon kept alternating between being visible and totally obscured. It was also somewhat hazy. But by the time the eclipse really got underway, the sky had totally cleared to the point that we had what is probably the clearest sky possible at the observatory, which is not in a dark sky location. Everybody was thrilled with the beautiful view, and we had the opportunity to see it with binoculars and telescopes people had brought. Since the sky got so clear, we used the observatory's 24 inch telescope to view Saturn along with several of its moons. The only drawback was it was quite cold, probably in the 20s. Still, viewing this eclipse was a wonderful experience, and I can't wait to see the pictures several club members took.
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dvandorn
post Feb 21 2008, 06:50 AM
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QUOTE (laurele @ Feb 21 2008, 12:39 AM) *
The only drawback was it was quite cold, probably in the 20s.

While I got a good view of this eclipse, I didn't take a long one. Here in Frostbite Falls... er, um, Minneapolis, Minnesota, it was about four below zero F (~20 below C) during mid-eclipse. It's down to about 10 below now (somewhere around 23 below C)... good for clear air, not so good for comfortable outdoor viewing.

-the other Doug


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“The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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tedstryk
post Feb 21 2008, 12:27 PM
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I had a view of the eclipse for a while (in other words, between clouds). Here are a few shots (I haven't even downloaded all the pictures from the camera yet).

Attached Image
Attached Image


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Ant103
post Feb 21 2008, 05:25 PM
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Very clear sky over Marseille in France.

Some pictures taken this night :

Rising over Puget Mount at 19:00 :


Before entering the shadow of the earth, Regulus and Saturn are following the very bright moon :


And some eclipse phasis :






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Ant103
post Feb 21 2008, 05:27 PM
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Continuing the diving into the shadow


Saturn and Regulus began to lightens more:


Shadow progress :


Sort of color that I like :


And finally, full eclipse :




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