Lunar Eclipse

By John W.  Reed

Occasionally nature provides us a rare show which is so dramatic that it almost seems that its purely for our personal entertainment, rather than simply due to the machinations of an impersonal universe.  I recall feeling this way when I viewed the aurora from my home in Cabot.  The Lunar eclipse was no exception to this and viewing this event from the property, a dark sky location, made the visual drama even more Soul shaking.

I recall arriving with my two sons Austin and Taylor on a cool evening on November 28th.  It was a Sunday night and I had misgivings about the boys being up so late on a school night, however I have strong feelings that education is much more than a school room and so I allowed them to participate.  There were several others present for that crisp, clear fall evening.  Bruce McMath, David Reynolds, Jane Jackson and Wade Van Arsdale were already setting up their equipment.  Bruce and David spent several hours working with the 8" newtonian now installed in Bruce's building.  After polar alignment and planning the exposure times to use they were ready to photograph the eclipse.

I set up my 10" binoculars for the first time and let several blind themselves on the light of the full moon.  The twin newtonian's seemed to he functioning fairly well with only a few bugs.  Wade Van Arsdale had his Schmidt-Cass and David rolled of the roof of the refractor building so that it could be used as well.  We were ready.

At about 10:30 the lunar disk had a definite gray tinge to one side, although through the telescope it was still bright across the entire disk.  I noticed several such visual oddities during the eclipse which were probably due to contrast phenomena and the human visual system.  During this period which the umbral shadow slowly covered the lunar orb, we would gaze for a while, then go to the club house to chat and await the shadow's slow passage.  Every time we returned to the night the difference was striking.  It was visibly darker, we would stumble around for a while until our eyes grew accustomed to the muted light.  Even my sons noted this effect which can not he seen from a brightly lit neighborhood in town.

As the shadow nearly covered the entire disk the color changes were bizarre.  To the naked eye the moon looked a dusky crimson color that contrasted sharply with the bright, canary sunlight portion.  Through the telescope the colors were even more outlandish with the area between the crescent and dark limb a blue-green shade which allowed one to easily view the maria.  Several albedo features seemed to stand out much better as the darkened moon allowed to the eye to view these features without the blaze of light which usually bathes the lunar disk.

Finally at about midnight the moon was entirely covered by the earth's shadow.  During this time the disk never became evenly dark, there was always a sliver of yellowish light at the southern edge.  However the eclipse was deep enough that the stars came out in thousands.  We had a dark sky night at full moon!  Very strange!  After we had studied the moon for several minutes we swung the 10" binoculars on to several dim galaxies and had no more trouble seeing them then we would on a moonless night.  However, we didn't stray from the moon for any length of time, soon some one pointed out that there were several telescopic stars now visible beside the dark moon which would he visible right up to the disk's edge.  The eclipse occurred in the Hyades cluster in Taurus so there were several fairly bright stars in the area.  The wink of a star perched on the edge of that strange globe was something I shall never forget!

Finally as all the best things in life do, the totality began to end all to quickly.  The yellow sliver rotated around the southern edge of the disk and began to widen on the opposite side.  The beautiful stars began to dim, the sky to brighten.  The eclipse was now going to proceed through the same partial phases as before, except in reverse.  Several began to pack up as it was after 1:00 in the morning.  My boys were so sleepy that I almost had to carry them to the truck.  By the time I drove away there was plenty of light with which to see.  Our lone satellite had returned to normal.  The gods had seen fit to let us live until again the moon is once again devoured by shadow!