Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

[Astroman]

Hi all,

With all the hype around the Solar Eclipse, lets not forget the poor old moon also..

On November 28/29, 2012 the moon will pass through the Penumbra of earths shadow. Although not as exciting as a total solar or lunar eclipse it can be fun taking pictures, and it's near Jupiter also....

[iceman]

Thanks for the reminder, Andrew.

For others, this starts at 11:15pm AEDST on Wednesday night, and finishes at about 3:30am AEDST Thursday morning.

It's a Penumbral eclipse, so the Moon will appear slightly darker during mid-eclipse, which is at about 1:30am Thursday morning.

It's visible for all of Australia and NZ.
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OHfigures/OH2012-Fig06.pdf

[Vegeta]

Old man moon was almost forgotten with all the exitement over the eclipse:) Lets hope the sky gives way and lets him shine......or not shine:lol:

[naskies]

Thanks, I've been itching to do some imaging. Unfortunately, the weather forecast is looking rather cloudy in Brisbane...

[Becstar]

My boss just walked past and advised me of this - I wasn't even aware of it! Thank god she knows I'm into this stuff or else I might have missed it. Hope the weather is clear down here in Gippsland.

[dan_b85]

Nice and fine tonight in Perth :) well till the storm roles in, best thing about west is the time differences

[Vegeta]

Nooooo!!!! What happened to that beautiful, clear, blue sky?

[mithrandir]

It vanished yesterday to become thunderstorms. Given that the eclipse is not very deep, we probably aren't going to miss that much.

[Vegeta]

:rofl:

[Liz]

Alll set and ready to head out later for a peek, and maybe a piccie or 2. :D

[jjjnettie]

Clewds disappear!!!

[Liz]

we seem to have become inundated too .....


CLEWDS DISAPPEAR!!!!!!!

[axle01]

You looking at the same clouds i am Liz.:(

[Liz]

helloooo Alan!!!! :)

A bit of light stuff around, but hopefully will clear a bit by midnight, fingers crossed, think positive thoughts. :)

http://astronomy.abigbluesky.com/

[Astroman]

Few cirrus clouds about ... amazing how a slight change in the moons appearance brings out the Astronomer in everyone :D 1.5 hrs ago :)

[jjjnettie]

Always good for a repost. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmtDVM8YgTQ

[Astroman]

Got the start of the eclipse :D got high cirrus clouds moving over atm.

[mithrandir]

About 30 mins ago the moon was clear. Now it's wall-to-wall cloud. G'nite all.

[alphamone]

completely clouded out here in canberra.

[Rob_K]

Hehe, got my pre-penumbral eclipse reference image, 11pm! :P Bit of light cloud here, have to wait & see. Not expecting too much as the 'deeper' darkening will be where the dark mare predominate anyway.

Cheers -

[Shark Bait]

A glimpse of Moon between the thick cloud but no chance of any photos where I am.

[stopusinmyid]

Cheers for this. My daughter mentioned it earlier so I set up scope and was starting to get worried cause it's now an hour later and I haven't noticed anything. Am surprised IIS didn't post anything on Facebook about it, well not that I've noticed. I think it's pretty cool.
:thumbsup:

[Rob_K]

Penumbral eclipses are pretty subtle events - just a touch of darkening of the Moon towards one side, depending on the degree of penetration into the Earth's penumbral shadow. Most people wouldn't even notice the difference. Don't worry about the scope, doubt you'd be able to discern anything. These are best viewed naked eye, intermittently so you can notice change. :thumbsup:

Cheers -

[Astroman]

Shadow is just noticeable.

[Rob_K]

Yep Andrew, picking it up photographically and visually now. Attached composite shows previous (pre-eclipse) image and new one taken at 12:40am AEDST. Less than half an hour to maximum now.

Cheers -

[Astroman]

Nice pics Rob, what equipment you using?

[ourkind]

A view of the eclipse from the moon looking back at earth would be interesting, I wonder how much of the corona would be visible if at all :question:

[Rob_K]

Just went out again and the clouds have disappeared! :D Will get some more shots as the shadowing is very clear now on the northern half of the Moon. Andrew, I'm using the MTO 10.5/1100 mirror lens with Canon 400D. Seeing is atrocious, but I'm stacking 5 subs.

Cheers -

[Astroman]

was wondering how you were getting crisp images :D 10mins till full eclipse here

[Astroman]

Maximum Eclipse.!

[sed8me]

Sure is tough viewing,
I have had a clear sky all night (for once) and only noticed hardly a half stop difference in exposure across the Lunar disc.
In past experience the Penumbral shadow has been alot easier to see both naked eye and in images, what gives ? :shrug:

[Rob_K]

Here's mine, might have another look at the shots in the morning, zzzzz.



Don't know sed8me. Not the darkest I've seen but this one was pretty deep with penumbral magnitude 0.9155. Seemed fairly clear to me around maximum. :shrug:

Cheers -

[sed8me]

They are some pretty nice shots :)
I guess I will see better once I am off the Camera back and onto the BIG screen.
I will also do a comparison of previous Penumbrals I have captured.
I have a sneaking suspicion that my retinas are still BeDazzled from a fortnight ago :screwy: lolz.

Just glad there was no Volcano Ash this time round !

Night peeps,
See y'all after some processing.

[Astroman]

Here is my side by side image.. the moon has rotated because I was using an alt/az mount... Both images had exactly the same settings.

[Liz]

Nice photos fellas. :thumbsup:

Got up and watched from 1130 pm (real time) .... the Moon was very bright. Thought I read somewhere that the darkening was happening from the top, wish I had read your post earlier Rob re darkening from the South.

Still .... went to bed after 30 min, didnt really notice anything, and didnt even attempt an image. :question:

[Rob_K]

Thanks Liz. The northern part of the Moon got darkest (bottom part as we looked at it). After 30 mins you really wouldn't see anything Liz, only becomes visible when it's quite advanced.

Attached is a composite, using 5 x 1/2000 sec shots of the Moon and 3 x 1/4 sec shots of Jupiter & moons (l-r Callisto, Ganymede & Europa - Io was too close to Jupiter's limb to show). Taken at 1:40am (14:40 UT), a few minutes after maximum penumbral eclipse. You'll need to enlarge it with the toggle to see the moons, it's pretty wide.

The image was reduced to slightly less than half actual pixel size. Let me know if you can see any joins (not visible on my monitor). :thumbsup:

And Andrew & I got published! :P :rolleyes:
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/28/15518822-eclipse-dims-the-moons-glow?lite

Cheers -

[jjjnettie]

Loving these photos. :)
I know a lot of people aren't impressed with Penumbrals because there isn't any dramatic change in brightness.
But I totally disagree.
That's like saying you don't like faint fuzzy DSO's because they are hard to see and don't show much detail.

[Tamtarn]

Fantastic comparison images Rob and Andrew.
Congrats to you both on your publication

Barb

[Astroman]

Agree J, thats one of the reasons I went out, it's a challenge to get these sorts of things and I am happy I missed those hours of sleep to get it.. I didn't last till the end though, unfortunately I was tired and the location I was in put the moon behind a big satellite dish from our next door neighbours, I thought I had it well planned.... oh well...

[Astroman]

Here is another shot of the eclipse...

[Forgey]

Here's mine taken with canon 1100D on the tripod

[callingrohit]

awesome shots everyone. Did go out and was able to notice the difference.

Didn't attempt to photograph as clouds were just around the corner :)

[Becstar]

Nice! :thumbsup:

[Becstar]

Great shots! :thumbsup: