Penmachine

In Vancouver, the clouds cleared just long enough for some beautiful views of the lunar eclipse. I got some nice pictures (and so did my dad):

Mine were taken with a Nikon D50 camera on a tripod, and attached to a Sigma/Quantaray 70-210 mm zoom lens set at f/5.6, ISO 800, exposures generally between a half-second and two seconds. My dad took his with a Canon Digital Rebel XT attached to a Celestron C90 reflector telescope on a tripod, acting as a 1000 mm f/11 lens, with similar exposure times and ISO settings.

Labels: americas, astronomy, eclipse, moon, photography, science, vancouver

It's already started, and so far the sky only has a few clear patches here in Vancouver, but if you're lucky enough you can head outside in about 45 minutes and see a total lunar eclipse for the last time until late 2010.

Lunar eclipses are much more common than the famous solar kind, but they are also spectacular in their own way. The moon can turn a deep red colour and appear much more obviously spherical. As the earth's shadow crosses it, you can also see the curve of our planet, showing our own roundness.

So if your skies are clear and it's night where you are, go outside! Check out the moon going into the earth's shadow!

UPDATE: We had some lucky clear sky spots and I fired off a batch of nice photos.

Labels: americas, astronomy, eclipse, moon, science

My dad has been an amateur astronomer most of his life; many of my childhood memories are of telescopes and dark skies and conventions of stargazers like him. This morning he woke up dreadfully early to take some photos of the lunar eclipse.

They turned out wonderfully. I'm especially fond of the mysterious limb that emerges from the darkness as the moon comes back into the light, and shows our satellite as the three-dimensional sphere it is. What an amazing universe we live in.

Labels: astronomy, eclipse, family, moon