Wednesday, October 8, 2014

1559m 2014/10/07–08

1559m 2014/10/07–08 05:40–06:35 EDT Foxmead W windows 3–8 ne 7x50b

Lunar eclipse

Sometimes it helps to have low expectations: you're pleasantly surprised! The weather prospects for the pre-dawn lunar eclipse were dismal, so I didn't even bother setting my alarm. When I woke up at 5:42 a.m. I was surprised to see the partially eclipsed Moon peeking through a sucker hole, low in the western sky.

The Moon soon vanished into a cloud bank, so I went back to bed. I got up 10 minutes later and the clouds were pretty solid except for one small strip. The Moon popped out again for a few seconds at 6:02, then was gone again.

Finally at 6:12, the Moon emerged into a clear patch, where it remained until I stopped watching at 06:32, by which time it was completely in the Earth's umbral shadow.

Those who were expecting a "blood Moon" will have been disappointed. The colour during totality was more a pale orange, verging on peach. As I said in my article this week on Space.com, there's no way of predicting the colour of a lunar eclipse in advance.

Temperature = 10°C

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