2010

Yeah It's been done. But great minds think alike ...

January: Sunbathing

February: Blizzard? What Blizzard?

March: Oh, Mexico ...

April: Why's Everyone Looking Up?

May: ... It's a Hell of a Town!

June: It's an Adventure!

July: Shadows and Light

August: 27 (?) Years and Counting

September: Water and Time

October: Falling, Falling ...

November: Hey, That's My Spot!

December: Light and Shadows

Emergence

The moon moves across the sky. We all know that. But you can't really tell by just looking.

At least most of the time.

But when the conditions are right, you can see the moon move. Like on the night of the total lunar eclipse.

Early on in the partial phase of the eclipse, the moon occulted a magnitude 6.7 star with a name only an astronomy geek could love, SAO 77647.

Now I was still setting up my camera gear at ingress, so I've got no shots, but I was shooting away at emergence. If you look really close at the bigafied version of the image above (click on any image to see a larger version) you'll see a tiny bump at the three o'clock position. (You might want to check the below images first, where the star is much more obvious.)

My friend Joe was observed both the start and end of the occultation. And he made a point of how he really got a sense of the moon's motion as he did. Most of the objects in the night sky are much too distant to show motion in real time. Only objects closer to home, those in our solar system, show any such motion.

More distant objects do show motion, but on the scale of decades or centuries. Not something obvious during a nights observing. The first two shots here were taken less than half a minute apart.

I had a similar experience watching Comet Lulin last year, as it moved past the field stars. Perhaps, like the star name, watching an occultation is something only an astronomy geek can get excited about. But I think that knowing something and then seeing it for yourself is really cool.

"My God, It's Full Of Stars!"

(Click on the image to see a larger version. Do it!)

Go out and look at the sky during the next full moon. What do you think you'll see? It won't look like the image above (maybe it will if you didn't click to bigafy it).

The reason I and three friends traveled to the heart of the Pinelands of New Jersey and braved the sub-freezing temperatures (it hit 28.6 °F = frozen feet) was to see exactly what you see here. The full moon surrounded by stars.

Of course, it required the moon to be eclipsed, to dim the brightness. Otherwise, as you'll see for yourself if you do the exercise noted in the first sentence above, the moonlight washes out all but the brightest of stars. The full moon is the bane of the astronomer's existence. Nature's light pollution.

My friend Laura over at SomewhereInNJ asks, " ... is tonight the longest and the darkest night ever?" Maybe not ever, but it was one of the darkest nights you can have with a full moon. Being on the Winter Solstice (for us northerners) makes the night long, while hiding the moon from the sun makes it dark. It makes for a lovely (if cold!) combination. And a treat to observe.

*****

Astrophotographer extraordinaire and fellow Willingboro Astronomy Club Member and friend Jerry Lodriguss was also out in the Pines, but at a different site form us. His wonderful images can be found here. (Be sure to explore his site for other great images.) We had originally planned to all observe together, but he needed an even darker site to capture those images. Other club members observed from a variety of sites, for most close to or at home. It's been fun reading the reports throughout the day.

*****

My friend and fellow TAREC member Lené at Counting Petals had big plans to snowshoe out to a frozen pond and shoot the spectacle. Alas, she was clouded out (and got to sleep instead). Her story is well worth the read.

*****

Did you brave the cold or look out your bedroom window (like my mom and my friend Barb)? If so leave a comment about your experience.

*****

This image is one of two I took with a wide angle lens. I could not tell if the images were in focus, so I gave up shooting with that lens, and went back to my long lens. I should have stuck with it. 


(More images to come ...)