Tag: eclipse

Posted on
by

I have cobbled together a pinhole camera out of two Amazon.com boxes (one at first, but the image was too small), a piece of paper, a piece of foil, and a lot of packing tape. The test run looks good: The image isn’t that big, maybe 3/8 of an inch, but I was able to see the shapes of clouds as they drifted in front of the disc, so it should be sharp enough to show the eclipse.

Since I was building it around the same time of day that the eclipse will be happening, now I know what the sightlines are going to be like. I’ll definitely have to go somewhere less obstructed, probably somewhere higher in case the clouds roll in tomorrow. Update: I did.

Posted on
by

Just yesterday, I had no idea there was going to be a lunar eclipse this morning. Then I skimmed an article somewhere and got the impression it was only going to be visible on the east coast, And then I read about it on Bad Astronomy and realized I had it backward. Not only would I be able to see part of the eclipse, but I’d be able to see the moon in totality! All I had to do was get up early in the morning and find a place with a clear view of the western horizon. I considered driving down to the beach at 5am, but thought I’d start out by seeing how visible it was from home. As it turns out, I should have gone to the beach to start with, but I had some good viewing before I left.

So I set my alarm, woke up at 5am (plus the snooze button), and went out to see what I could see. To my surprise, I actually had a decent view of the partially-eclipsed moon from across the street. It was about half-covered at this point (as shown in the first photo above). So I stayed out there for a few minutes deciding what I wanted to do, went back in to have some coffee and breakfast, then went back out shortly before 6 to watch as the umbra covered the disc the rest of the way. I found it interesting that it didn’t look particularly reddish this time, just brown.

Awesome viewing, though it was clear the moon would dip below the roofs of the houses soon. I needed a less obstructed view.

As soon as the moon went into totality, I went back inside, woke up Katie just enough to let her know I was going, tossed the rest of my coffee in a travel mug and hightailed it down to the beach. Continue reading →

Posted on
by

I found this while looking through a box of old photos, in an envelope marked Lunar Eclipse and developed in June 1994. Most likely the May 25, 1994 eclipse.

I’m not sure, but I think the bright splotch near the bottom is actually the moon, and the clear image of the moon up near the top is a reflection inside the camera. I have no idea whether the ring is an atmospheric phenomenon that got picked up on the film, or just lens flare.

Update: It was most likely taken with a point-and-shoot fixed-focus 35mm camera (though I had an SLR by that time that my grandfather had given me, so I’m not sure why I wouldn’t have used it). But even if it’s a really messed-up picture of an eclipse, it’s still an interesting-looking picture, IMO, which is why I scanned it.

Posted on
by

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features a view of Mauna Kea’s shadow on the sky, just at the tail end of last week’s lunar eclipse:

Mauna Kea Shadow from APOD (photo by Alex Mukensnable)

I couldn’t help but be reminded of our visit to the summit in April 2005, just at sunset, when I took this similar (but decidedly less cool) photo:

Atmospheric Optics explains why most mountains’ shadows look triangular when viewed from their summits.

Posted on
by

There’s been a surprising number of visitors today to my post about getting up at 2:30 A.M. for last August’s lunar eclipse. Strangely enough, they’re not only looking for the same phrase, “lunar eclipse pictures,” but they have the exact same referrer, down to options and encoding. The fp-today parameter leads me to suspect that some module on Yahoo’s homepage (not one I can see, though) included a link to this set of search results. Though I suppose it could have been a newsletter or a blog with more regular readers than mine.

Another surprise: visits from commentary on last night’s Clinton/Obama debate. The comment thread includes a link to my post on JMS’s Londo/G’Kar campaign signs. Found while skimming the comments for links: T-shirts for the Capricorn ticket, Roslin/Airlock.

And then there’s the surge in searches for the Black Flash, no doubt inspired by people reading today’s Something Positive strip. In addition to landing directly on the profile, people are coming in from the Wikipedia article, and finding Flash Foreshadowing via an image search.