Monday, June 4, 2012

Partial Lunar Eclipse - Observation Log

This evening, June 4, 2012, was a partial lunar eclipse. This happens whenever the Earth is in between the Sun and the Moon, and they become aligned in a way that the shadow of the Earth will cover part of the moon.

The event happened during moonrise so I had to find a clear view of the East. The best view I could get from my immediate vicinity was from the overpass at Q-mart in Cubao, Quezon City. The sky was also very cloudy due to a recent storm that passed by. I was reluctant to observe but I decided to go with it anyway. I grabbed my Nikon D3100 and a 55-200mm Nikkor lens and waited for the moon to reveal itself.

The moon began peeking through the cloud cover and I started grabbing some images. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any good shots and the clouds obscured my view of the maximum eclipse (at 38% cover of umbral shadow). Also, I had to leave the site since there were suspicious individuals eyeing my camera (almost lost my wallet to a pick-pocket the previous night; never observe alone in an unsecure location).


Dismayed by my lack of usable images I went home to follow the live TwitCast from the astrocamp observatory. I went out every now and then hoping to catch a glimpse of the eclipsed moon. Fortunately, the skies cleared a bit and I rushed to take out my 6" Newtonian reflector and set it up on the street. I was finally able to get some decent images. Too bad I wasn't able to do an eclipse progression. Maybe next time! :)








2 comments:

wheatchaff said...

the shadow looks straight! can you publish the completely raw pictures? it would be interesting to see the true shape of our planet by the shadow it throws on the moon ;-)

AstroNorm said...

Sorry for the late response, I haven't opened my blog for sometime. Unfortunately I've lost most of the RAW files to my astroimages. I'm not sure if I have a backup somewhere of it.