A mid-summer nights eclipse

by Jeff Gortatowski

Inside I prepared the 'expensive' bits. Two Televue oculars were prepped for use with a 49mm a-focal adaptor. My much loved and worshiped Fujinon 16x70s were placed where I could find them half asleep. I wanted to make sure I had as thinking to do as possible when I awoke from my visions of lottery fame and fortune. I am not known for my spryness when I awaken from my slumber. I loaded freshly charged batteries in my Olympus C-2100UZI and mated it to the 22mm Panoptic via the afore mentioned 49mm adapter. The UZI is a prehistoric camera from the what is scientifically reffer to as the "Twoacios Megapixzoic Age" or commonly known as the "Two Megapixel Age". However it is but the last survivor of my once proud stable of superzooms. And the only 'camera' I currently posses. I am, how shall we say? 'Between cameras', as it were. The UZI uses a 49mm filter hence the afore mentioned a-focal adapter bought some years ago when I fancied I might take a picture through a scope. Tsk.. tsk... not even!

With preparations made, I ate, showered and went horizontal at about 11pm (07:00UT on the 28th). My wife, having all the faith in the world in me, had already bet me I'd sleep right through what DDK might call 'The Big Doin's". (Or the Moon fu?) With the alarm blaring at 2am she was almost right. But I can't let her win, ya know! ;) So I arose with a clatter to have peek at the matter... no wait.. wrong tale...

So I fumbled into shorts, flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt (not a pretty picture aye? hey this is Southern CA we are talking about ya know) and stumbled downstairs dodging confused felines everywhere. They are not use to seeing me up at that hour. I step on out into the balmy night. It was a tad humid as I noticed a haze around the moon even as we, I say that in a Terran sense, started to gobble the moon up. Should I pitch fire arrows into the night? No... that might attract the fire department...

Sitting down to the bino and drawing the 16x70 near, I must have looked like dentist bringing the magnifer overhead... open wide and say.. whoa!! Where did all that CA come from? I guess I never looked at really bright objects with those binos before. Or I am just getting spoilt by APOs. Should I get 15x50 Canon IS'?? No matter, thats another thread.. I adjusted the individual focus eyepieces for best focus, least CA and went about enjoying the marvelous spectacle. And quite a spectacle it was.

As the peachy effect abated and we (Selene and I ) settled in for the duration of totality. I thought to my self, "Self, this is very nice...", I have a way with words, "However it is not as dark on the southern tip as I might have thought it would be."

"Well!", she said, "That just won't do now will it?" And so as things progressed the moon got far darker than I recall in the past. Again I considered the fire arrows. But arson is a felony... The northwestern quadrant was almost featureless. Looking around I could make out the double cluster and M31. M31 was iffy but I knew where to look so I could convince myself. After all, 5 miles from the Happiest Place on Earth (accept if you are an amateur astronomer) that observation is 'iffy' on new moon nights!

As the entire surface took on it's characteristic orange / rust color I thought that looking through 16x70 the moon was a peachy hue within the umbral area and still monochromatic in the penumbral area. It looks like a peach with fuzz - a peachy keen sight fer sure. Indeed the whole eclipse seemed to me to be more 'pastel' than I remember. I recall past eclipse featuring a more rusty deeper red. This one was... pastel. Perhaps being darker to begin with... ya think?

I don't know if it was the venue, or the circumstances, the air, (de air ist de air, what can be done?) but I have not seen past eclipses where the moon showed what was going on so well. Especially on egress from the shadow. It was obvious to see the geometry of what was happening (okay obvious to me). Half or more of the moon was still immersed in the umbra, 30 or 40 percent in the penumbra, and a tiny sliver, out in the clear. It was all very Mars'esque. Looking for all the world like Mars had been moved closer with a nice polar cap.

And so it went. Just sitting back relaxing, staring through the binos. Quiet contemplation, occasionally wondering who else was doing the same out there in the big wide world.

I took lots of a-focal pictures and as I was unloaded them I logged on to TAC. Lo and behold I saw Paul LeFevre's first photo. I promptly deleted my folder. :) So it turns out using an un-driven Telepod mount, on a Bogen tripod, with an 80mm f/5 sporting a 22mm Panoptic in the diagonal and a Olympus C-2100 attached to it was not the greatest idea. Sure sure one could pat ones self on the back for getting anything that even looks remotely like a lunar eclipse using that junk. And indeed I did get something 'remotely' like that, but why waste the disk space? Sigh. On the other hand, all the equipment in my entire backyard cost less than the camera body Paul used. Money talks, short fat Jewish guys like me ought know that by now. There's no substitute for money. :)

However, all is not lost. As is always the case for me with this hobby; I find eyeballing the dirty deed to be far more satiating than looking at digital bits post-the-deed, lovely as those digital bits might be. Good thing too since I pull such a strong vacuum as a photographer.

So as totality wore on to third contact I waited for the 'Mars effect' to happen at, oh about 4:15am local I should think. After one last long swig of moon through the 16x70s I took the 'expensive stuff' inside. Right about 4:40am I returned to the horizontal. All in all, a worthwhile endeavor.

And to all a good night. :)

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Jeffrey D. Gortatowsky
Fullerton, California