Total Eclipse of the Moon

These are nice images of the lunar eclipse last night made at the Washington Monument. The eclipse occurred as the full moon was shadowed by the Earth. It was a bit damp and cold here at 29° N. so my images weren't as impressive.



In a total eclipse of the moon the moon passes through the shadow of the Earth. For the East Coast of the USA that occurred early Tuesday morning. The result was the moon appearing to turn a deep reddish brown. Normally, the moon is illuminated by the sun, but the Earth cut off that light source for a few hours this morning, creating a ghostly moon apparition in the night sky.



ABOVE: Portland.

The eclipse began at 1:33 a.m. Eastern, and the total eclipse lasted from 2:41 a.m to 3:53 a.m. The event completely ended at 5:01 a.m.



ABOVE: From WIRED magazine.

For skywatchers, the event was made all the more unusual by the eclipse falling on the same day as the winter solstice. The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. At my latitude -- 29° N. -- that translates into today being 10 hours, 19 minutes and 45 seconds long with a solar noon altitude of only 38.1° and solar noon occurring at 12:24 pm. But. . . not to worry. By December 23, 2010 the days will start to lengthen and by Dec. 26, 2010 the sun will already appear at 38.2° in the southern skies with December 26 being a full 1 and a half minutes longer than today.



Contrast our day today with, for example, Philadelphia -- at 40° N. -- and our day is a full 1 hour longer and the sun appears more than 10°s higher in the southern sky. Today in Philadelphia the solar noon altitude is only 26.6°. . . or in Paris, France -- at 48° N. -- where our day is over two hours longer than theirs and their solar noon altitude is only 17.8°. Doesn't seem so bad then by comparison.



By March 21, 2011 our days will be 12 hours and 9 minutes long with the sun appearing at nearly 62° in the southern sky. By June 21, 2011 our days will be nearly 14 hours long with the sun nearly directly overhead (at 84.9°) and we'll probably be wishing that it were December 21 again as temperatures will likely be in the mid 90°s F. (mid 30° C.).

BELOW: William Castleman, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Florida, created a time-lapse video of the moon, centering it in his camera lens and watching a shadow eat away at the moon to reveal a great red orb. He filmed it in Gainesville, Fla., between 1:10 a.m. and 5:03 a.m. He said the temperature was in the mid-30°s F. (1.6° C.) and, though it was cloudy in the first part of the evening, the sky cleared up and gave him perfect visibility.

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse from William Castleman on Vimeo.

For the photography buffs out there, he used a 4-inch telescope on a equatorial mount that followed the moon at a lunar tracking rate and took a photograph every 20 seconds with a Canon 40D. He assembled the photographs using Quicktime Pro software.



The last time the solstice coincided with a total lunar eclipse -- on the same calendar day -- was long before any of our lifetimes, experts say. The year, according to Geoff Chester, public affairs officer at the U.S. Naval Observatory, was in the year 1638.