[Slugman]

For those who were "clouded out" from seeing the Perseid meteor shower, here's your chance to see something really cool in the night sky. A total eclipse of the moon is coming The eclipse will start a few minutes before 1 am our time on Tuesday morning, August 28th. But the change in the moon will be hardly noticeable for quite a while. The total eclipse doesn't start until almost 3 am, and will last for 90 minutes. The best part is that the moon will turn a shade of red or orange, no one knows exactly what shade until it happens. I'm bringing my alarm clock to my hiking destination this weekend, so I'll get to see the eclipse from an Alpine Lakes Wilderness lake at over a mile high.

[Yana]

Thanks for posting about this, Slugman. Full lunar eclipses, unlike meteor showers, don't happen very often!

[GeoTom]

I actually was able to take some decent photos using a tripod of one several years ago...probably 1997 or 1998...need to look in the old photo albums to confirm the exact time. The thing that struck me during the eclipse was how the moon really seemed to be spherical. Yes, I know it is a sphere, but the actual three dimensional nature of it was vividly apparent to my eyes during the eclipse. It was almost like it was some sort of ball hanging in the air, waiting for me to catch it.

[Frank]

More information on the lunar eclipse http://aa.usno. navy.mil/ data/docs/ LunarEclipse. html

[touron]

Slugman, I hope you can take some pictures...

[mike]

A couple photos of 2003 total lunar eclipse. Unfortunately the haze was pretty bad. eclipse

[yukon222]

3:00am alarm is a little early but 5 minute drive to the viewing spot made it a little easier. Shot for 60 minutes, trying various settings. Had a few shots affected by cars driving up to view the eclipse too. Here are a few pics of the eclipse, shot with a simple p/s on tripod.

3818

3820

3829

3832

3855

3858

3863

3868

3854

[Hiker Mama]

Wow, your pics show an intense color. Was that the true color you saw? From my vantage point (my porch in Lynnwood, very light-infested) the color was a dusty deep yellow-orange. I thought about dragging the camera out, but I was too sleepy, even in the cold. Maybe I should have gotten out of my pjs I did get my binoculars, and enjoyed seeing it from that perspective. Thanks for posting your pictures.

[yukon222]

All of these are just straight from the camera, no color boosts or Photoshop. The color intensity of the first one 3818 was due to the longer shutter time, 15 seconds. Most of the others were shot at 8 - 10 seconds. The color did change as I watched it for an hour. It was a deeper smoky orange a little after 3:00am, then started to lighten up over time. I found if I exposed it for only 5 or 6 seconds, it wouldn't capture enough light/color. The "in person eyeballl" color from outside North Bend was somewhere between the shades of 3858 and 3868. I didn't even think of bringing binoculars. Would have been interesting to study it closer.

[Opus]

Dragged myself out of bed to snap a few photos. I couldn't bring myself to drive anywhere so I just walked out to the corner and setup my tripod. Very pretty eclipse, nice red color. Ignore the little red spot in the last photo, seems I now have a hot pixel in my 20D.

[bobbi]

i want a new camera! opus, what kind of camera were you using? after seeing the photos of the totality (my photos looks like yukon222's pics), i opted to post my pre-totality.

it was beautiful.......just wish i had a better camera!

[Opus]

It's a Canon 20D SLR, with a Sigma 80-300mm lens for these shots. Not the best quality lens, but good for it's price.

[native]

[heavenly day]

In our house, we call moons like last night's, a "jaw-droppin' moon." This morning just before 6AM it was as big and beautiful as I've ever seen it. And my jaw really dropped.

[Red River]

The moon was about 8% larger than what we usually see and that helped make the display magnificent. The NASA link give a timeline for upcoming eclipses. http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html