We lucked out here in the Cincinnati area and was able to see the eclipse
The eclipse of Nov. 8-9
was one of the brightest in recent memory, with the Moon lit orange by sunlight
refracting through Earth's atmosphere (see graphic below).
Never during the eclipse, unless there were clouds, was it difficult to see
craters and "seas" on the Moon with a small telescope.
Steve Rismiller got this view from near Cincinnati.
"We did have some clouds from time-to-time but only enough to make it interesting,"
Rismiller said.
The image was taken with a 102ED Vixen refractor telescope, a 32mm eyepiece,
and a Nikon 995 digital camera, ISO 100, 4.7 second exposure. He used Photoshop
to flip it over (most telescopes invert images) and "do just a little sharpening."
This last eclipse of 2003 may have also been the most photographed in history,
as easy-to-use digital cameras are in more households than ever. We've got several
other pictures here.
Rismiller has other celestial photographs on
his web site, including an amazing recent
image of the largest solar flare in recorded history [Here's
a story about that flare].
-- Robert
Roy Britt
Credit: Steve Rismiller
Why
the Nov. 8-9 eclipse
was so bright and colorful
In any lunar eclipse, some red light
from the Sun is bent and bounces off
the Moon. Here's why:
During the
Nov. 8-9 eclipse, the Moon
skirted across the bottom of Earth's main
shadow, called the
umbra. That puts it in
a better position to be hit by some
of the refracted red light.
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