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April's Lunar Project
Hi all.
I have threatened to do a Lunar project like this for some time – the ambition was to take a Moon image every day of a calendar month to visually represent the changing phases of our closest neighbour. I have tried assembling my Lunar disc images that I have taken over the years but with different equipment and libration and the like it all looked out of whack.
There were a few obstacles in my plan – I did not have a compact scope and camera combination – the best I had was my Nikon DSLR in the back of my Meade LX90 8”. If not this set up it was mosaics with either the DMK31 or 51 – these options seemed to be a little cumbersome and time consuming and that had dampened my enthusiasm.
The other challenge was of course the weather.
Two things got me moving again –
• Enter the TAK FS60 – a perfect wide field scope and a perfect match for full discs with the DMK31 at prime focus.
• The month of April 2014 had two fantastic Lunar events – I do love celestial syzygies.
1. Total Eclipse of the Moon, 15th April
2. Partial Solar Eclipse, 29th April. I was initially thinking of the ‘Solar Eclipse’ bit and it eventually dawned on me that this would be the only way I was going to capture the New Moon – it would round out the project in style!)
Now, not everything went to plan. I was unable to image on the 1st and 2nd of April 2014 – I was off to a poor start so I changed my plan to image the Moon on every second day.
• 3rd April 13% illuminated Image taken at 6pm.
• 5th April 30% illuminated Image taken at 7pm.
• 7th April 50% illuminated First ¼ Moon Image taken at 7pm.
• 9th April 69% illuminated Image taken at 8pm.
I was feeling pretty chuffed at this point. I did not have too many clouds to contend with and images were captured within minutes of setting up.
• 11th April 85% illuminated Image taken at 7pm.
As my DMK31 is a mono camera and I wanted to capture the eerie red of the Full Eclipse I used my more cumbersome set up – Meade LX90 with the Nikon D3100. From my location the Moon rose fully eclipsed but was obscured by the ever reliable only cloud in the sky. We got the back end of the show – total to receding umbral and penumbral shadow. The image included in the series is just past full but shows some nice colours – exposure 1 second with ISO at 400.
• 15th April 100% illuminated Full Moon & Total Lunar Eclipse – image taken at 6.30pm.
• 17th April 97% illuminated Image taken at 9pm.
• 19th April 87% illuminated Tonight’s image was taken just before 11pm and the next few images will become early morning targets – the tough run in the imaging series.
• 22nd April 54% illuminated Alarm went off at 2am and I rolled out of bed to a set up scope, ran 3 AVI’s and went back to sleep.
• 24th April 31% illuminated This was a 5am image with no set up from the night before so I only ran 2 AVI’s and then got ready for work.
Three images to go!
• 26th April 12% illuminated This image was taken at 4.45am before I headed off to golf.
Knowing the eclipse began at 4.31pm local time and would only be 9o (the width of a fist at arm’s length) above the horizon; I had to find a suitable location with a clear W.N.W horizon (291o) not too far from work.
The Moon covered 24% of the Sun at mid eclipse but unfortunately that all happened after the Sun had set. This image was captured with my Lunt 60 Hydrogen-alpha scope (showing the Chromosphere only visible at the red end of the light spectrum) and DMK51. The image was only just captured and you can see clouds across the Sun’s disc – all my images from this session had clouds involved. As the Moon is the hero in this project I centred the New Moon so only a small section of the Sun is visible. I wanted to capture a WL image too but conditions and time were against me.
• 29th April 0% illuminated New Moon passing in front of the Sun
Although the images are not perfect I did enjoy the project and the overall results achieved.
I am left with one nagging thought - when and where do a Total Lunar and Total Solar Eclipse occur in the same month?
Thanks for taking the time to read and view my Lunar month.
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