MetaChat - Eclipse!

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03 March 2007

Eclipse! →[More:]I have a fantastic view of the lunar eclipse because there are no street lights in the forest, so the light pollution is reduced. I've set up the camera and am doing my best to take some pictures, using the 'starry sky' setting with the longest exposure it will do.

Tonight after the meeting everyone was going off for Chinese food. I wanted to go, but an eclipse of this quality is a rare thing. I can have char sui any day.

post by: essexjan at: 17:16 | 28 comments

I was waiting for this but everything is completely overcast here. :(

posted by arse_hat 03 March | 17:34

After dark it might be possible to see a LITTLE bit of it here, but considering it is going to be 17 and windy, I might just ignore it and wait for the August eclipse.

posted by weretable and the undead chairs 03 March | 17:37

Overcast here, too... I'm looking forward to seeing your pics, ej!

posted by BoringPostcards 03 March | 17:37

Stynx is outside right now, seeing if we can see it.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 03 March | 17:44

Annnd we can't (too overcast, too many buildings), so we'll look forward to your pics!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 03 March | 17:45

Overcast and still light out, so no dice here. On the other hand, I have about 10# of pork barbecue that's almost ready for eating.

posted by sciurus 03 March | 17:54

The moon is red! It's RED!!

posted by essexjan 03 March | 18:04

Beautiful.

Better Half and I went to the lawn next to the Church of Scotland, abutting the zombie graveyard. The sky was crystal clear and we looked at the moon and constellations. There were more people walking around than usual.

I was imagining a white, mint gumball on a black carpet, and me hovering impossibly high. The sun is beating down on me. As I float, paralyzed, a wind blows me imperceptibly forward, and my shadow begins to slowly cover the gumball.

A man with a dog walked past.

Thousands of Scots texted, It's doing it! to each other.

Better Half remembered a story about the moon growing suddenly and unexpectedly much, much brighter, due to the sun going nova on the other side.

posted by By the Grace of God 03 March | 18:20

A couple of years ago there was meant to be some amazing summer moon that would be visible to the south at 10.30pm. So at 10.30 I came out into the close and met a couple of my neighbours who were also intending to walk across the plain next to the forest to see it.

So we wandered for about half a mile, in the pitch black, and no matter where we looked, we couldn't see this damn moon. So we sang "This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Aquarius" and danced about a bit, then came home.

This moon is amazing. I'm going back out again. The battery in my camera is nearly dead and the spare isn't charged :-( Night pictures are very energy-intensive.

posted by essexjan 03 March | 18:24

The moon pictures have not come out well. I followed the settings as it said in the manual, using a long exposure and the automatic timer, but the moon is moving quickly across the sky. The pictures taken on the longest exposure made the moon look like a blob, and even on the 15-second exposure they're blurry. So I'll not be sending them to flickr, they're pretty bad. This is about the best of them.

But I'm so glad I saw it. It was beautiful.

posted by essexjan 03 March | 19:11

It's absolutely staggering. The last lunar eclipse I remember was when I was a kid and I watched it from the window of a caravan in Wales. The same thought kept going through my head then as it has been tonight: "That's the shadow of the Earth. That's the shadow of the Earth."

posted by chrismear 03 March | 19:28

It was indeed beautiful. I had friends round for dinner and we kept leaping up every 10 minutes to head to the roof and watch.

posted by greycap 03 March | 19:37

≡ Click to see image ≡
Taken in West Warwick, RI around 7:25pm.

posted by knave 03 March | 19:42

Damn, I was watching TV and forgot. I wouldn't have minded, except the TV wasn't all that good (Buzzcocks and a rerun of Have I Got News For You notwithstanding).

On preview: woah! nice.

posted by TheDonF 03 March | 19:44

I'm processing the images now. For the time being, you can have a peek at a time lapse I've put together on YouTube. I'm doing a second time lapse cropped in to just the moon. I'll let you know when that is up as well as my Flickr set.

posted by Medium Format 03 March | 20:14

≡ Click to see image ≡
Kingston, RI. I missed the good part of the eclipse. Stoopid clouds!

Knave: WTF!? WEST WARWICK!? What street!?

posted by CitrusFreak12 03 March | 20:32

Er, some context is probably in order.

I live in Warwick. Across from the Crowne Plaza.

posted by CitrusFreak12 03 March | 20:33

essexjan, that's still a good shot. It's on my desktop!

posted by deborah 03 March | 20:40

It was overcast here. BOO. HISS.

posted by fluffy battle kitten 03 March | 20:47

I've put up some of my eclipse shots on Flickr. Now... bed.

posted by Medium Format 03 March | 21:47

Ugh. Medium format wins.

::throws camera to the ground, stomps off::

posted by CitrusFreak12 03 March | 21:59

Medium Format those are gorgeous!

CF12, pick that camera back up, boy. now, quit being a pouty-lip and go shoot yourself some pictures!

essexjan it's really, really hard to shoot good photos of astronomical features. i mean really hard, and that shot you took and linked is pretty damn fabulous.

we couldn't even see the eclipse from here, hurf.

results like these (submitted to spaceweather.com by some swedish dude) are often the result of some fairly spendy equipment, not the least of which is some form of tracking software to compensate for the earth's rotation, etc.

posted by lonefrontranger 03 March | 22:12

I kicked the tripod in the middle, alas, but actually I like this one of my eclipse shots the best!
≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by mygothlaundry 03 March | 23:23

Mighty ballsy of you to post that mgl.

posted by arse_hat 03 March | 23:26

I took a few. The wind was blowing so damn hard I couldn't even keep the tripod still. Plus it was WAY TOO COLD to spend more than a few minutes out there. But anyway.

posted by weretable and the undead chairs 03 March | 23:28

We had clouds and haze until the last 20 minutes. I saw a bit of a penumbra, no sharp shadow though. Crap! Lucky all of ya!

posted by stilicho 04 March | 00:22

Haha CitrusFreak! That's ridiculous. I'm down near 117 & New London Ave...

I like everyone's shots here, very cool stuff...

posted by knave 04 March | 00:39

After a frantic day of work, I took some time to bowl on the tournament lanes. It was a harder oil pattern, but my practice was rewarded with a 206 (very nearly a 227; stupid nine pin). I was beat; dead tired, and I didn't want to go grocery shopping, but I forced myself to go. On the way to the grocery store, I called my girlfriend to tell her about my score, and to discuss her moving plans for next weekend. The moon was shrouded in clouds, but as I sat in the darkened parking lot, I was wondering why the phase of the moon kept changing. Then I remembered. In the hour I'd sat alone in the cold cab of my truck, talking to my girl, I'd just seen an eclipse.

Some moments just make you feel like things are all right.

posted by Eideteker 04 March | 03:03

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