moon

Total Solar Eclipse 2017

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We viewed the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 from Prairie City, Oregon, about 5 miles from the centerline of the path of totality. This video includes a time-lapse sequence of the partial phases (about an hour-and-a-quarter real time into 20 seconds) and still frames of totality ( which lasted 2 minutes 9 seconds).

Sunspots are visible during the partial eclipse phases. The diamond ring and Baily’s Beads are visible just before totality. The corona and solar prominences can be seen during totality, and the bright star Regulus in the constellation Leo is visible to the left.

Images were captured using a Canon EOS 6D camera attached  to a Takahashi FSQ-106 telescope on an iOptron CEM25 mount. The camera was controlled by a Windows 10 PC running Eclipse Orchestrator Pro v. 3.7.2017/06/14 from Moonglow Technologies. Accurate timing and geographic location information were obtained using a Garmin GPS 18x USB device. The computer was connected to the camera using two cables: A camera interface cable, IFC-200U from Canon and a DSUSB shutter control adaptor from Shoestring Astronomy. A solar filter from Orion Telescopes & Binoculars was fitted over the aperture of the telescope during the partial phases.

Waning Crescent Moon

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Waning-crescent-moonIn the early morning hours of Oct 5, just before closing down the observatory, I decided to try capturing the crescent moon while the seeing conditions were still good. Here is the result. Click to open a full-size image.

This image is a mosaic of three images: northern, mid-section and southern, each of which was created from several hundred frames of a 60-second video clip. Frames were sorted by quality, aligned and combined using Autostakkert!2 software by Emil Kraaikamp of the Netherlands.

 

Lunar Eclipse

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On September 27, 2015 at dusk, we observed the full moon rising over the Cascade mountains when it was already in eclipse. At first it was difficult to see as the sky was not very dark yet. Then gradually as the moon rose and the sky darkened, the dark red orb became more apparent. As the moon moved through the Earth’s umbra shadow, patterns of brightness changed until it finally emerged as our familiar bright full moon.

Lunar Eclipse 2015-09-27
If you were standing on the surface of the moon during this eclipse, you would see the Earth blocking the sun, and surrounded by a ring of red-orange light. In essence you would be seeing all the sunrises and sunsets of planet Earth at one time. The center of the Earth’s shadow is toward the upper right in this photo and the lower left is not as deep in shadow.
Final stage of lunar eclipse
This is a “phase” of the moon you will never during a typical month — a bite taken out of the full moon as the moon emerges from the Earth’s shadow or umbra. These images were taken with a Canon 6D DSLR camera with an f/4 300mm fixed lens on a tripod.