Monday, September 28, 2015

Lunar Eclipse 2.0

We had a wonderful sky show last night. Was it a Super Moon? A Blood Moon? Nah, it was just your basic (but quite beautiful) total lunar eclipse. Our second of 2015. I enjoyed the event with a bunch of college astronomy students and members of the general public at an observing session last night.
Way out west here in California (where I now reside) the eclipse had already begun at moonrise. It was a nice sight seeing the Moon rise in the east already partially eclipsed, but the real show began as darkness fell and the Moon advanced further into Earth's shadow.
Here it is, nearly total, through a thin layer of cirrus clouds.
Ah, totality.

Here are some people in silhouette seen against the city lights of San Marcos and Vista. Their glow illuminates the cirrus clouds. The Big Dipper can be seen through the clouds. With all this this light pollution it is hard to imagine that the Milky Way was visible from our observing site, but it was.