For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, there will be a total lunar eclipse during the early Tuesday morning hours that should be quite visible from the United States and Canada (I do not know about other countries… Sorry.) You can find more information from NASA, including the exact eclipse times (according to your time zone).

Hi,

Thanks for the "Heads Up" (pun intended) I will check it out with the family tonight.

I was in the bush working last night and the moon was very bright by midnight, when I locked the access gate I did not even need a light to operate.

Mike

Actually, I am interested, this is the first total eclipse since 2004 in our area (Idaho, USA) The observatory I am affiliated with herrett.csi.edu is planning some early morning activities for this event. We will begin at 02:30 MDT Tuesday morning and conclude when
the eclipse is over. Hopefully if all goes well we will have several telescopes (up to 10) and will record this event in several formats (DVD, 8MM and VHS) Okay, so we're astronomy geeks.

Stargazer

Hi Stargazer,

Thanks for the NASA link, for me the eclipse will be in the very early morning, no way I will be able to get my 3 teenagers on the last week of summer vacation, out of bed to see that.

Dw and I may catch it though,

Mike

Sounds romantic; never underestimate the power of the moon, or anything else that works!

Mike

If you have a digital camera with good zoom feature, don't hesitate to take some shots with several different sets of exposures, and post the best shot here! This is quite a rare event. The moon is in perigee (it's ~8% larger than the other times), and it'll actually cross the center of the Earth's shadow (which is 4 times the size of the Moon). Tripod is advised during totality, it's going to be very dim.

And it will be red from what I read in the local paper. If I am awake in a couple of hours, I will wonder outside with my camera. Hawaii is supposed to have a great view of it. In fact, the Bishop Museum is having an eclipse party tonight, probably at their planetarium.

It's exactly 0300 here (Mountain Time) and I just looked outside (we're working a 4p-12p operation this week). The North-Northeastern segment of it is eclipsed right now. I'm going to give it about 15 minutes and see what happens.

By the way, earlier tonight the moon was full (and huge!) and very bright. I had a 70 mile drive home tonight and could have done it with lights off...relatively easily.

NOT that anyone wants to read a play-by-play tomorrow of what they missed early this morning, but.............

it's 0325 and the moon is just shy of halfway eclipsed. Maybe the color will change to a deeper red but, from what I can tell, the upper eclipsed part right now appears to be just a light, rusty brown.

More play-by-play to come...... ((( )))

I just stood in the front yard and watched the last 10 minutes of the eclipse. I'd call the color a dull orange, I guess.

It eclipsed fully at 0355 MT but the southern half had a slightly brighter glow than the northern, which eclipsed earlier. Interesting: about 3 minutes before the full eclipse, a falling star shot down toward the southern horizon, almost crossing the moon.

Isn't Mercury or Mars supposed to travel closer to the earth this month than in the last skillion years? I thought I read that somewhere. It's supposed to appear twice (or more) the size of the moon.

There you have it. If you missed watching or recording it, you get all the benefits just by reading the last three posts. And....you're welcome! ((( )))

Since I slept right thru it (meant to get up, just failed), thanks...

Damn, slept right through it -- slept good too

The moon was very bright at midnight, proabally the brightest I have ever seen. I could walk around my yard easily without a light and the shadows cast by the moon light were very distinct.

I also slept through the eclipse in the early morning hours, Thanks for the play-by-play Stretch!

Mike

If you missed it (like I did) there is a good picture of the total eclipse of the moon over North Carolina at Astronomy Picture of the Day ( apod.nasa.com ) Check out the picture from August 26, 2007.

Tim

you sure of the URL ??
tried without success www.nasa.com ; apod.nasa.com ; www.apod.nasa.com ; www.nasa.org ;

Try nasa.gov, US government agencies get their own suffix.

.gov !! ... damned ...
should have thought of it ...

Hello all:

First; the eclipse was great. Our astronomy club co-hosted the event with the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls, ID, USA. There were 140 people in attendance (amazes me on a school night, so many parents and kids) and between our club and the school we had eight telescopes, four 35MM cameras, one digital SLR, two color video cameras and recorded the event via standard VHS and MiniDV formats. From the MiniDV, we will be able to make still photos and possibly a video. We will most likely make DVD movies. These things take some time, so please bear with me and the group as we need to review what we have (six plus hours of tape) since we took images and video all night long. Once the images are up I will post something. I believe it will be a link to our main website.

Second; I want to thank Stretch for providing a "play-by-play" here. I had access to computers, but really did not think of it with the crowd and all. Thanks again.

Third; About Mars, the planet, not the Roman God. Bear with me on this one, please! I don't mean to offend anyone either.

For the last four years or so there has been an e-mail making the rounds again and again stating that MARS will be closet to the Earth. You have no doubt read the one that says that if you go outside on, or about August 27th and look at Mars, it’ll be as big as the Moon. Please repeat after me (of course raise your right hand) "Mars won't look as big as the Moon on August 27th." There you said it.

The close approach this email is discussing did happen back in 2003. It did indeed get closer than it had in at least 50,000 years, but this was a very small amount. On August 27th, 2003, Mars closed to a distance of only 55,758,006 kilometers (34,646,418 miles). The Moon, by comparison, orbits the Earth at a distance of only 385,000 km (240,000 miles). Mars was close, but it was still 144 times further away than the Moon. On August 27th of this year Mars will be about 180 million kilometers (over 100 million miles) away.

Today, or rather yesterday, is not the day that Mars will be closer to Earth just like every day isn’t. I hope that helps clear things up.

Take care,

Stargazer

Darn it, I missed the whole thing. Stayed up until 3 a.m., then the infomercial drone got to me and I curled up on the couch. Neither saw the event nor had a good sleep. And I have an inexplicable compulsion to sculpt my abs. Bloody 'eck!

Before coming home last night (or, this morning), I was talking to a co-worker about the eclipse and the Mars "event". He said he heard that was an internet hoax, something I had never heard before. It makes sense now, because I never did hear or read any news reports about it. Thanks for clarifying that.

I just googled 'apod' & got in that way.

Tim