2008 Total Lunar
Eclipse
By Jon Alden
everythingwestport.com
Wednesday, February
20, 2008
DSL/Cable
users; click on photo for higher quality.
ON TOP OF
THE RT. 88 BRIDGE - Westporters were treated to a spectacular heavenly event
Wednesday evening as the Earth’s darkest shadow (umbra) totally eclipsed the
moon. Leftmost image: The moon
entered the Earth’s lightest shadow (penumbra) at around 6:55 p.m. EST, and
then the darkest shadow (umbra) at 8:43 p.m. and became totally eclipsed at
10:19 p.m. (middle image), Rightmost image: The moon leaves the Earth’s
umbra shadow at 12:09 a.m. EST Thursday morning. The eclipse event lasted 3
hours and 26 minutes. Saturn and the star Regulus,
the brightest star in the constellation Leo, were dazzling
handmaidens to the queen moon in total eclipse.
The weather
cooperated beautifully as the interspersed clouds would break frequently and
completely expose the moon from time to time for this photographer’s camera.
This total lunar eclipse will be the last until December 20, 2010. These images
were recorded with a Canon XTi Rebel with a 200mm f2.8 IS telephoto lens, ISO 400,
with exposure times ranging from 1/1250
to 1.5 seconds.
The moon
doesn’t totally darken as indirect sunlight passing through our atmosphere
provides some illumination, although filtering out the blue light. The result
is the reddish or orange tint you see in the middle image, depending on the
dust and cloud cover in our atmosphere at the time.
The last lunar eclipse that was
visible from all of the U.S. was in 2004 when the Red Sox were in the World
Series. “American
Indians thought little good came from an eclipse. For example, the Navajo
believe that the moon and sun have powers to regulate life and that during an
eclipse, life-giving forces halt,” said Harry Walters, museum director at Dine
College, a Navajo-run college in Tsaile, AZ.
"You don't sleep, you don't eat, you don't drink water. You stay put. When
the eclipse is over, life begins again."
Beginners information on solar/lunar eclipses and
photography
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