melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote in [community profile] common_nature2010-12-21 01:53 am

A Red Dragon is Eating the Moon

Liveblogging the 2010 North American Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse. :D Lat 39 N, Long 76 W

Some notes of art: to follow the everybody-can-to-it theme of this community, these pictures were all taken in a suburban yard with a cheap EasyShare digital camera and no extra equipment. ...as a result, though, these images are really not a very good equivalent of what was visible through the naked eye - I had very limited ability to adjust exposure times and focal depth, so the short-exposure shots are far too dimmed out ( you could see a disc for almost the whole course of the eclipse) and the long-exposure shots are far too bright ( the slivers, especially, look much bigger in the photos than they did through eyes.) And, of course, in general it's much less sharp and I lost detail. But I am not going to say they aren't accurate, because a creature with eyes like an EasyShare camera would have seen pretty much this. :P

1:45 AM
early phase lunar eclipse, the moon is a disc with a bite out.

2:00 AM
early phase lunar eclipse, the moon is a disc with a bite out.

2:15 AM
mid phase lunar eclipse, the moon is a disc with a bite out.

2:23 AM
mid phase lunar eclipse, the moon is a sliver.

2:30 AM
approaching totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a sliver.

2:35 AM
approaching totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a sliver.

2:35 AM long-exposure
At this point I had to switch to longer exposure, nothing showed with short exposure. (Hence the sudden blurriness.)
approaching totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a red disc.

2:40 AMapproaching totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a red disc.

2:45 AMapproaching totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a red disc.

(2:45 -> near-totality, break to thaw and post pictures.)

3:15 AMtotality lunar eclipse, the moon is a red disc.

(3:15 -> totality, break for fresh pomegranate and old brandy)

3:45 AMjust post-totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a red disc.

4:00 AMjust post-totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a sliver.

4:15 AMjust post-totality lunar eclipse, the moon is a sliver.

-->4:30 AM Bed.
lark_ascends: Total lunar eclipse (Astronomy-moon)

[personal profile] lark_ascends 2010-12-21 08:00 am (UTC)(link)
I saw this post and the first thing out of my mouth was: "I love you". LOL.

Thank you for sharing these. I might see whether I can get some energy up later to try to take a photo when the partially eclipsed moon rises here in Sydney.
lark_ascends: Blue and purple dragonfly, green background (Default)

[personal profile] lark_ascends 2010-12-21 08:23 am (UTC)(link)
Heeee. Well, I could just post my montage of the later half of the eclipse from August 2007. :-) We're not going to get to see any totality, sadly, and I'm feeling too crud to take photos, I think.