anth
Member
|
# Posted: 3 Mar 2007 16:03
Reply
If you read this right now at my time of posting, you can still run outside and catch the end of the Lunar Eclipse.
For a change it was an ideal night for sky watching here in the Southern UK.
Not a cloud in the sky for the build up to totality, and the eclipse itself. I've seen more attractive colours in a Lunar Eclipse, but it was a stunner just the same. I was pointing my telescope at the Moon as the Earths shadow passed across its surface it really was a lovely sight.
Pale orange light from every sunset and sunrise on Earth shone onto the Moon, the highest peaks on the Lunar surface hung onto direct sunlight and appeared as brilliant white points of light. The orange got deeper as the Moon fell directly in the path of Earths shadow. With Sun, Earth, and Moon lined up perfectly to produce the Eclipse.
I enjoyed the whole thing, with brief swings of my telescope to take in Saturn, which really looked amazing tonight. I saw 3 moons of Saturn, and the famous Cassini division in the rings.
I hesitate to say what else i saw....
If you're a regular here, you'll have heard me say some stuff about *coughs* UFO's. I've been an astronomer since childhood. I've always said if i have not seen a UFO with all the time i spend looking at the night sky, then nobody ever will. Tonight, off to the right and bottom of the Moon, during the middle phase of the eclipse, i saw something very odd.
It glowed dull red, simular to the moon during its eclipse. i definately made out a shape, it was not displaying lights, but showed up against the night sky. It was not an airplane, trust me on that. It moved like the international space station does, but did a huge u-turn in the sky. It was big too!
I've no idea what it was. I'm calling it a UFO, because to me it is unidentified. Don't mistake that for flying saucer! *L* I know my stuff regarding airplanes, artificial sattelites, and astronomical phenomenon. I do not have a clue what this object was!
As the eclipse was ongoing at the time, i just hope others saw it too. I shall keep my ear to the ground at report back if i hear of any other accounts.
I had 2 glasses of wine with my indian take away tonight, before you ask. 
Anyway. These will be about 1 millionth in the list of best Lunar eclipse photographs. But they are probably some of the first to hit the web. This is an old digital camera of mine, pointed down my telescope. Not a very accurate set up, i have 100's of black pictured which are not interesting enough to upload. And 4 with something on. Here are two of them. *L* ( the UFO is not in the picture btw. )
The Earths shadow traces its way across the Moon.
Nearly at total eclipse here. Not a great image, my camera cannot cope with low light, and lens fogging! But you can just make out the orange glow creeping over the Moon.
So, all in all, an exciting night in a back garden in Wiltshire, England.
http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth
|
anth
Member
|
# Posted: 3 Mar 2007 18:15
Reply
I was outside for about 90 minutes. I felt cold after that! I'm getting old i think. *L* I used to pull all nighters with my telescope, with ice on the ground, drawing maps of Jupiter and Mars. Unless i win the lottery and buy myself a huge dome for my scope, those days are gone! 
about the UFO, i have never seen anything i couldnt explain before tonight. A friend of mine, an experianced astronomer saw a huge flash in the sky a few years ago. He even reported it as a potential super nova. But it wasnt according to the official peeps. He's an avid observer of artificial space stuff in orbit too, and meteors. He knows everything, no way would he get it wrong.
I've seen the space station many times, MIR before that, the shuttle, Hubble in orbit, iriduim mirror sattelites flaring. Even a Russian rocket seperating its booster stage from my garden. All these things are logged if you hunt, and can be mistaken for UFO's. But, there's nothing that exists ( officialy ) that could do what this thing did tonight. Still, people looked funny at my mum when she saw a black triangle in the sky, about a year later the Stealth Bomber got shown to the public. It was probably some hybrid alien/USAF thingy out of Area 51.
|
