Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Total Lunar Eclipse














Well another total Lunar Eclipse has come and gone and guess what, I was able to view it, oh happy day! The images I took above are from the top to bottom; totality, almost totality, start of totality and start of the eclipse.



When I woke up Monday morning I noticed the Moon was smack dab in the middle of the neighbor's trees, I had to formulate a plan of attack if I was to view and take pictures of the eclipse. My options were, the school ground or the park just down and across the street from me. Then as I was pulling into work, it hit me, the mall where I work would be perfect, wide open view of the south west sky and my own personal security guard, score! The next hurdle I would have to overcome is how I was going to get my Big A_ _ scope, that's right my big Arm scope, because that's what I break every time I move it; to the mall, an employee friend of mine
volunteered the use of his truck, problem solved.


Now there was the small problem of the forecast, the weather channel was saying rain , but the Clear sky clock, which is very accurate for a 24 hour time period, said the weather would be clear for Saskatoon between 1 and 5 am, I told my wife this and she laughed, probably thinking poor crazy Bob. At 9:30pm, T-5.5 hours and counting, it was raining, I was thinking, stupid rain, stupid clouds, stupid hobby and stupid clear sky clock. and went to sleep. I woke up at 1:30am to head over to the mall and put the time in just in case hell froze over, and to my surprise I had clear skies! Yes Clear Sky Clock rules!


So I get to the mall set up the scope, get my own security guy and we wait. Well of course while we're waiting I proceed to tell the guard all about eclipses, how the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and casts a shadow on to the lunar landscape and it's orange and brown because Earth's atmosphere scatters and absorbs the blues and allows the reds of the Sun's light through to the Lunar surface, we then got into Quantum Mechanics and Superstring Theory, well I did anyways but I could tell he was just soaking it all in. I don't know what happened to him, I went in to the office to get another eyepiece and when I came out he was gone, must have been called away to an emergency. Below is a pic of the scope and guard.





Check out Anna's site, she was going to be out this morning as well trying to get some pics of the eclipse, hope everything went well for her too. Actually my guard did come back, he finally started talking, he's a history buff, we got talking about the American civil war actually, something I am very interested in, great eclipse, great weather, and great conversation.




30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the pics! I passed out and woke up at 4:15 this morning, when I headed outside to see what was going on, I realized that I missed the big event. Bummer for me :(

kml said...

Great images!! Glad to see yours - I wasn't visible in our area. Beautiful work!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Aura and kml, too bad for you guys : ( I almost missed it though, raining most of the day right till 1:30am, cleared up , and then rained again at 6am

myonlyphoto said...

Hey Bob, these photos are stunning, very well done. Now, I want your telescope. And don't scare me like that next time, I was under lot of stress because I felt like I was responsible for the total lunar eclipse on this planet lol. Believe or not around 1-2 am the moon was covered with clouds on my side, so I said probably Bob is blowing them my way lol, I went to sleep and woke up around 3 am to the moon' shine again. Well I am glad that it worked out for you, and you got your Total Lunar Eclipse blog story out...
Anna :)

Scruffyhippo said...

Brilliant picture Bob, thankyou for all your hard work :)

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Anna, you did an awesome job yourself! Wow how would it have looked after all this talk about the eclipse and then neither one of us taking pics, it would have looked like we were asleep on the job,lol. It was so close, raining up to 1:30am and then being so wet, I had a real problem with dew, had to keep cleaning my eyepiece,and taking my scope inside to dew off. All done now till Feb 21/08, the next Lunar Eclipse!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Peter, I will finally sleep well tonight.

smaugslayer said...

Excellent work!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks smaugslayer.

Anonymous said...

Amazing pictures Bob!
I live in Australia,for us the big event took place at very convenient evening hours.I was lucky to get to see it all 'live' with a clear sky:)
Keep up the great work!
Cheers!!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Megha, glad you were able to view the eclipse as well,

Nature Nut /JJ Loch said...

Great photos, Bob!!! Between you and Anna I had great views of what I couldn't see because of a thunderstorm. :D

I can't wait to see what you post next!!!

JJ

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks nature nut/jjloch, I was almost a casualty of a rain storm too

Abu Zunnur said...

Thanks Bob, I was waiting to view the pictures, your hard work is paid off.
Poor security guard, you must had scared him away with your Quantum Mechanics!

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks zunnur! I think your right I must have scared him away!

PA said...

Great pics Bob, had a pretty good time watching the eclipse, need to get me some better lenses or something, getting pretty into this star gazing, I'm starting to think my neighbors maybe wondering what I'm up to in the middle of the night, outside with a camera, lol.

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks rand, I think you did a pretty good job of the pics!, you get use to the nieghbors thinking your crazy after awhile, look at me up till 3am in my pod looking through telescopes, I think they think I'm working on some top secret project for the government, or just crazy, lol

Anonymous said...

Stunning your pics bob, and I love your stories as always, you really know lots of HOW TO - and you walk the walk and talk the talk ;)

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks so much Tatiana V!, I try to make what sometimes seems boring a little more enjoyable.

Cath Delaney said...

Great pics Bob :)

Thanks for sharing them.

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks nim!

Anonymous said...

Wonderful images Bob. The guard sure does not look to impressed does he?

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Rose, he's the silent type, I think I took that pic right in the middle of our Quantum Mechanics discussion, lol

Willshiresllc said...

Great Pics Bob! Thanks for sharing. I posted about it at my blog. :-) Those are awesome photo's.

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Bill!, wow you have a lot of sites, thanks for the write up!

Anonymous said...

Greats photos! Thanks for letting me see what I missed!....whopper of a thunderstorm here in Minnesota...

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Danny! I was lucky I got them at all with all the rain before and after, too bad you missed it.

danielpatrick said...

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poker said...

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