Lunar Eclipse

by Randy Muller, Thomas Noppe, Jamie Dillon, Stacy McDermott, Rich Ander, Jeff Gortatowsky,

Thu, 20 Jan 2000 19:13:04 PST Randy Muller

It's underway!

There's a nice chunk of the moon missing.

Randy (viewing through broken high clouds in Sacramento, CA)

20:31:49 Thomas Noppe

I can see it "ok" from Fremont but there is a thin layer of clouds that is obscuring the moon so it looks very fuzzy.

20:45:59 Jamie Dillon

In Salinas at 1920 there was a smudge of Moon coming thru the cloud cover. Could just see that it was darkening on the left. At 1940 it looked like a 3rd quarter Moon thru dsnse clouds. Now with patient staring or binocs there's a dim smudge, a faint lightening of the cloud deck.

As we would say when in New England, a pisser.

20:50:39 Stacy McDermott

The lunar eclipse looks pretty good out here [SF] in the sunset. Nice copper-penny colour. Took a couple of pictures but mostly looking at it with binoculars and the 80mm Delta Flyer....good thing that lunar eclipses last longer than solar ones!!

20:58:57 Randy Muller

The moon now has an awesome 3d appearance.

The north eastern side is deep reddish, and the south western side is pale. The clouds make it difficult to tell if it's completely eclipsed yet or not.

The center of the moon appears to be bulging out towards me.

The clouds are variable, and during most of the time up to now it was completely covered up.

21:18:51 Rich Ander

Well, I am very suprised it's turned out clear. We have a habit in Toronto of clouding out events worth seeing. Even though the temp is now 0 deg F, the show is a good one. The Moon seems a bit darker at totality than the last one I saw some years back, but the colour is pretty good.

21:24:38 Stacy McDermott

Just finished off a roll of film. I hope that the photos will come out decent. (I had no time to prepare for this as I had working training for the past two days and didn't get home until 7.30pm, dog-tired) It is quite beautiful, especially when taking in the whole sky...the orange (or per Martha Stewart), the pale copper-penny hue contrasts nicely with the darkness of the sky accented by the small white "diamonds" images of the stars. This is a good thing. To make it an even more special event for your guests, mortgage your children and buy each guest their own personal telescope complete with their names in caligraphy etched on the tube.

Mon, 24 Jan 2000 10:06:46 Jeff Gortatowsky

I did not post my impressions since I figured, as usual, they were wrong. But here in Orange County I felt the eclipse was darker than I expected and it was virtually monochromatic. But then again I was not dark adpated and was observing on a night that had mostly cloudy. I could not tell if I was viewing though high altitude haze, thin clouds, or not.