Yesterday, the Moon passed into the Earth’s shadow for the longest lunar eclipse in many years. Unfortunately for me, North America had its back turned to the event, but folks in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia had a great view. Tim Bates, in Adelaide, took this fantastic series of pictures of the Moon in and out of totality:
He took one picture every three minutes or so and combined them into this composite. It reminds me strongly of the lunar eclipse we did get to see here in the States last December. He posted a nice picture showing a series of close-ups, too.
YouTube user Jakub Barabas posted a lovely video of the eclipse as well:
Once the Moon went into full eclipse he increased the exposure time a bit so you can see the red glow on the Moon’s surface, which is difficult to photograph when exposing correctly for the still-brightly-lit surface. The red is due to sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere before getting to the Moon; it’s the same reason sunsets are sometimes red.
Did you take some good pictures or video of the eclipse? Leave a link in the comments!
Tip o’ the umbra to NASA Goddard’s Twitter stream for the video link.
Related posts:
- My new favorite lunar eclipse image
- Didja see the eclipse?
- INSANELY awesome solar eclipse picture
- ANOTHER insanely awesome shot of the solar eclipse?!
- When the Earth takes a bite out of the Sun
June 16th, 2011 at 11:04 am
I’ve seen a lot of lunar eclipses, and photographed them as well. But nothing I have seen beats one of the images I saw online from Australia…
http://www.spaceweather.com/submissions/pics/l/Liz-Gleeson-eclipse1_1308174145.jpg
I’m still in awe.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:26 am
And Google had a nice little animation in honour of the event as well.
It’s not up on their archive yet, but was cool: http://www.google.com/logos/index.html
June 16th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Hah! Not really. Western Germany was covered with clouds. No moon.
June 16th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
I was lucky to see the eclipse, here are some pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rugrln/5838734674/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rugrln/5836667909/in/photostream/
June 16th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Another happy coincidence for Boston sports fans. Another lunar eclipse and a Boston sports team finally wins a championship after a long drought (Red Sox in 2004 and Bruins last night).
And before you jump on me, yes, I do know it happens to be a coincidence and that the lunar eclipse had nothing to do with the Bruins (or the Red Sox) winning.
June 16th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
It was a very cloudy night in Helsinki, unfortunately. I managed to take a peek at the moon a couple of times through some breaks in the clouds, though.
While I didn’t see as much as I had hoped, what I saw was quite beautiful.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tuomasnylund/5838656333/in/photostream
June 16th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
So … if I were standing on the moon, looking back at the Earth during a total Lunar Eclipse, I’d see a thin red ring.
Just like when the old X-Box crashes and dies!
June 16th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
I really wish we had something on the moon that would view earth / the sun during all of this so we could have a really cool solar eclipse view from the moon.
June 16th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Eastern Australia was covered in clouds, too
Boo! On the plus side, both of my trips to the US got me total lunar eclipses – the second one was the winter solstice one last year, plus February 2008.
June 16th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
The moon was a slightly orange-ish color around 9:30 pm CST (the time stamp in the Exif data is incorrect I’m afraid).
Not a lunar eclipse I’m afraid, but still kinda neat considering the last lunar eclipse visible from this area was blocked by clouds
June 17th, 2011 at 1:26 am
We had huge thunderstorms here in Grahamstown, South Africa and I’d all but lost hope of seeing the eclipse, but in what can only be described as the cosmos smiling down on me, about 10 minutes before the eclipse started, the clouds blew over and I was treated to perfectly clear skies for the duration of the eclipse. Was an incredible sight and I got a few other people interested in astronomy as we watched the eclipse and I pointed out some of the other interesting sights in the night sky.
June 17th, 2011 at 3:20 am
It was cloudy here in NE England.
June 17th, 2011 at 8:05 am
“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.”
- Ferdinand Magellan
June 17th, 2011 at 8:30 am
It was a bit hard to see here in the Netherlands because it was underway as the Sun went down (and the Moon came up), there were some clouds, and there were some trees in the way, but I did manage to make a photo, when it was just coming out of the shadow:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/I1zoQkwKGRz27_lOmKNOpQ?feat=directlink
June 17th, 2011 at 10:42 am
I second Endyo!
June 17th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Alas, I didn’t have the opportunity to take a picture, but just observing it with a good pair of binoculars from a very dark place was awesome. And at the end, when the moon was about half-eclipsed, some clouds appeared. Not enough to hide it, but enough to make it… well, magical.
June 17th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
On another note, I have to say that lunar pareidolia escapes me. I have tried and tried all my life but I simply can not figure out what the “face on the moon” is supposed to be. I see the “seas” and patches of lighter/darker, but I simply have never been able to get the merest hint of a face to resolve.
Doesn’t bother me, I can always watch the Lumière brothers’ La Voyage dans la Lune (1902) to see a face on the moon.
http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/film-breakthroughsbreakdowns/melies_trip2themoon.jpg
June 17th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Yes indeed. I got up and saw it here in Adelaide, South Oz too – it was freezing cold then I can tell you!
Alas, I lack the equipment for astrophotography, don’t even hae a working camera of any sort presently, but I did enjoy the spectacle. Great to see a fellow Adelaidean get a mention here – superb photos thanks Tim.
June 18th, 2011 at 3:13 am
Not the greatest shots, probably, but for what it’s worth, here are mine: https://picasaweb.google.com/trshash84/Totality
It started out cloudy, but it became quite clear sometime after totality. I was able to capture the red moon. Now, that was an incredible sight!
July 1st, 2011 at 11:20 am
[...] What you’re seeing is the totally eclipsed Moon glowing a dull orange-red as it reflects sunlight filtered through Earth’s atmosphere, sitting next to the Lagoon [...]