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21 january 2000
Lunar Total Eclipse
by Lorenzo Comolli
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After a 1999 full of astronomical shows, the
2000 couldn't be started in a better way: the Total Lunar Eclipse was propitiated
with a wonderful clear sky! I and some friends of GAT Astronomical Center
attended to the eclipse from a field near Tradate (VA, Italy, in lowland),
with a good visual at the West horizon.
My objective was to take a sequence of
images with the 20cm f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain, at 15 minutes time intervals.
The exposures started at 2.30 UT and ended at 6.30 UT. Because of
the constant time steps I realized an animation of the whole eclipse.
In the animation you
can notice the apparent rotation in clock-wise direction of the bright
and dark parts. In reality it's the Moon that was moveing in the Earth's
shadow cone. Another particular is the reddening of the Moon in the exit
phase, because of the approaching to the horizon.
| The image at right is a three hour exposure
of the Moon. Note that the eclipse was very low on the horizon.
3 hours exposure on Kodak Gold 25 ASA,
28mm objective closed at f/16. Started at 2.30 and ended at 5.30 UT.
Click on the image
for a higher res version. |
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Here are in details all the images used
to compose the animation and the picture of the whole eclipse.
Technical data: 8" f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain
telescope, Kodak PJ-400 film, times of exposure and hours are written under
each image.
2.30 UT (1/500)
2.45 UT (1/500)
3.00 UT (1/500)
3.15 UT (1/250)
3.30 UT (1/250)
3.45 UT (1/60)
4.00 UT (1/30)
4.00 UT (4 sec)
4.15 UT (8 sec)
4.30 UT (8 sec)
4.45 UT (15 sec)
5.00 UT (15 sec)
5.15 UT (15 sec)
5.30 UT (8 sec)
5.30 UT (1/8)
5.45 UT (1/60)
6.00 UT (1/125)
6.15 UT (1/250)
6.30 UT (1/125)
For every comment about images, or about
my bad english:
comolli@libero.it
