The September
2015 ‘Supermoon’ Eclipse
Eclipsed Moon and stars – 0347 BST, 10s at ISO 1000 23mm F1.4.
Recent Lunar
eclipses have been a washout for me and I wasn’t holding out much hope for the
autumn 2015 ‘Supermoon’ eclipse. So when Sunday the
28th September dawned clear and sunny – a perfect, golden autumn day
in the way they occasionally are up here in the English Lake District - I still
wasn’t about to start raising my hopes. I spent the day evicting the summer
spiders from my observatory, expecting the clouds to roll in at any moment like
usual.
To my
surprise, the evening weather remained warm and still, the sky only slightly
hazy. An after-dinner walk around the block revealed an enormous, orangey Moon
rising over the hills across the bay. I ran home for my camera, but had already
missed the best of the moonrise by the time I got to a spot with a clear view.
I charged the
camera batteries, collected my gear and then went to bed early, still half
expecting the sky to cloud up at the last moment. But as I set my alarm,
brilliant Moonlight was flooding the garden: so bright it was giving the fields
opposite a faint tinge of colour instead of the usual fifty shades; maybe there
was something to this Supermoon thing after all.
Getting up
early was never my forte and I stumbled out of bed at two like a zombie. I
tripped over the cat, nearly dropped an eyepiece. I ached for a strong coffee,
but there was no time: the Moonlight seeping between the curtains was
noticeably dimming. I peered out and could see a chunk already missing from the
lunar disk. Conditions looked virtually perfect with just some light haze
around the horizon.
The garden
was Moon-bright and chill, but I was disappointed to find shadows reaching across
the white plastic of my observatory dome. The dipping Moon was already behind
the tall tree at the end of the garden, as I had feared it would be. I hastily
resorted to plan B.
Fortunately
my balcony still had a good view. I struggled upstairs with my little Takahashi
FS-60Q/Teegul rig, manoeuvred it through the doors and
got it roughly aligned. By then my daughter had appeared, even more groggy than me and still in pyjamas.
By half two,
more than half the Moon was in the penumbra, which was taking on a bilious
yellow hue. The stars were winking out all over the sky as the Moonlight faded.
I was pleased that the little Takahashi mount was tracking well, despite the
load of a camera. I started snapping.
0300 BST, 1s
ISO 1250 F10 (Takahashi FS-60Q)
0309 BST, 1.5s
ISO 1250 F10 (Takahashi FS-60Q)
Between
three and three fifteen the lit Moon shrank to a brilliant sliver that took on
a marked blue tone whilst the penumbra turned brick red.
Over the
next half hour the full eclipse came on gradually with a very gradual
transition from penumbra to umbra. But by about three thirty, the Moon had
become so faint and dim it would have been all but invisible to a casual sweep
of the sky. Photos show deep crimson-orange hues, but through my trusty Zeiss
7x42 binoculars it looked much darker, the colour of dried blood.
As I snapped
photos, I had to keep raising the ISO setting and extend the exposure time
until I was using up to twenty seconds at ISO 2000. Compare that with the ISO
200 and 1/400th I might have used for an ordinary full Moon with the
same scope (the Tak FS-60Q is F10). This eclipse went
really dark!
0352 BST, 8s
ISO 2000 F10 (Takahashi FS-60Q) – Look carefully and you’ll see stars!
My favourite
sight at lunar eclipse is the dark Moon surrounded by stars. The sky was
completely black now and crammed with stars overhead and all around. Scanning
around with the binoculars, I found various deep sky objects as if this were
new Moon, not full. Orion hung in the east and the arms of the Great Nebula was
luminously easy to pick out. Where earlier that evening the fields across the
way had been bright as dawn, they were now invisible.
With the
neighbours all asleep, the balcony I was viewing from was suspended in
blackness, like the deepest Moon-less winter nights. The extinguished Moon seemed
to excite a couple of owls in the woods across the way – they called spookily
to each other and I tried to find them with the binos
but it was just too dark.
0412 BST, 6.5s
ISO 2000 F10 (Takahashi FS-60Q)
The eclipse
ended as gradually as it had drawn in, but by quarter past four I was back to
exposures of a few seconds at ISO 2000. At twenty past, the Moon’s far
south-south- west was brightening rapidly, whilst the opposite side was still
quite dark. The penumbral colours took on more muted, tobacco shades. Meanwhile,
moonlight slowly returned to the landscape around me. The local badger took
this as a cue to start his nightly scratching at my poor lawn and I took a
moment to try scaring him off.
After more than
two hours outside, I suddenly noticed how cold I was, particularly around my
toes. Across the field some house lights had come on and I heard a car door
slam and the roar of an engine. Early risers were off to work. I wondered if
they took a moment to look up at the eclipse; from the irritable way they
accelerated up the road, I guessed not.
I gave up
photography, retired inside and sent my flagging daughter back to her bed
(modern teenagers have no staying power). For the remainder of the eclipse, I
snuggled into my big old armchair alone in the dark and enjoyed watching Earth’s
shadow gradually draw away through my binoculars.
As the
shadow line reached Mares Serenetatis, Tranquilitatis and Nectaris it
seemed to become lumpy, looking like a jagged bite, or perhaps as if the Moon
were sliding behind a storm cloud. I couldn’t decide if this were a real
feature of the edge of the penumbra or (more likely) due to all the albedo
variations in that part of the Moon.
At the very
last, well after five, my daughter got up again to feed the cat, who was howling
mournfully, apparently disturbed by the strange changes in the Moonlight. She took a quick last look at the Moon, harrumphed and went back to bed. I followed
soon afterwards - well pleased with one of the best lunar eclipses I’ve seen.
The morning after. Takahashi’s FS-60Q/Teegul had proved a perfect
portable imaging rig for the eclipse – sharp optics, flat field, ideal focal
length and stable tracking.