Total Eclipse of the Moon
November 9-th, 2003
November 8-9 was one of the few clear nights of the month; not too cold,
but quite humid.
The eclipse was quite bright; I'd rate it as a Danjon 4. Being close to the
umbra's edge made the brightness very uneven across the disk, even at maximum
eclipse. Visually, it was quite spectacular; the reddish coloration of the
moon was clearly visible even at 1/3 eclipse.
The picture below is a 10 seconds exposure at f/10, 1250mm focal length on
200 ISO film (Kodak gold).
The field of the moon (6 sec / f/8 exposure at iso 200 with a Canon G3).
Image is at full resolution, but cropped. Longer exposures showed more stars,
of course, but overexposed the moon even more. This image is rotated 45 degrees
from north-up.
