Lunar Eclipse
October 27, 2004
Observing Locations: Downtown Brooklyn and Freeport, NY
Equipment: Celestron 7x50 binoculars mounted on a tripod, naked eye
At 9:30 p.m., I watched the start of the eclipse from the intersection of Court and Bergen Streets in downtown Brooklyn, observing a black, cloud-like shadow slowly descending upon the Moon's surface. As I drove home from downtown Brooklyn, I observed the black shadow creep across the Moon's surface. (Of course, I only looked when stopped at various red lights along Atlantic and Conduit Ave in Brooklyn.)
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At about 10 p.m., when I got home to Freeport, I set up my 7x50 binoculars on a tripod in the Montessori School parking lot. By this time, the black shadow covered about half the Moon. I alternated between naked eye observation and binocular viewing, and noted that what appeared to be a black shadow to the naked eye was coppery red through the binoculars. I could also clearly observe the Moon's seas and craters on the copper-red surface through the binoculars. |
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At about 10:30 p.m., during totality, the Moon took on an almost coppery appearance to the naked eye. I observed the Chinese lantern effect, with a little crescent of dark black shadow on one side and a little crescent of light on the other cntrasting with the copper colored center. At this point, I noticed that many stars had emerged, even from the light polluted parking lot. I took a few mintues to look at the Pleiades, always a beautiful sight, through the binoculars. |
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At about 11:15 p.m., some clouds started rolling in. I watched the Moon pop out from in-between the clouds until about 11:38 p.m., when the coverage got too heavy. I packed everything in but went back outside at about 12:30 p.m., and saw a little bit of a black shadow moving off the Moon between some breaks in the clouds. |
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