Mooned!

The moon passed through the lower aspect of Earth's shadow (also called the umbra) this evening resulting in a total lunar eclipse. My previous attempts at photographing the eclipse failed for three reasons.

1. No good camera
2. No good telescope
3. No tripod

Thanks to Spokane's cloudless sky, look what I can do now!

Actually, I didn't need any of the above to get this image. Instead, I found a nice picture with the help of Mr. Google, then I rotated it in Photoshop to get to just the right angle, then voila! A striking representation of what I saw in the Spokane sky tonight. Well, except that the craters and plains on the moon's surface are in the wrong location...

Update! My former labmate from PhD land was interviewed on Seattle's King5 news about the eclipse. Watch the news segment here, and read about the Green Lake experience on her blog.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

I mean moon. Total eclipse of the moon. And for West Coasters, it's at a reasonable time! 7:30 PM! Here's NASA's diagram explaining when to look on Wednesday night:


If you live in a different time zone, go to this page. 'Supposed to rain or snow in Spokane, so I'm not going to get my hopes up for seeing it this time. At least I witnessed the full lunar last August in Seattle.

Not Too Late

If you are reading this real time, which according to my Sitemeter, means there will be 3 or 4 of you, here is the information about when to view tonight's lunar eclipse from the West Coast. Click on the image below for all sorts of information.Other time zones stats are here. What a great chance for a break. And there are no clouds in Seattle right now! I'll see how my new nifty little point and shoot digital camera holds up to a mooning.

Thank Bora for the link!