Total Lunar Eclipse (8/28)

[NC George]

Lucked out here in Eastern NC (or at least my part of it.) We had a nice bright full moon when I got off work at 1 am. As I was driving home, I noticed some clouds moved in. When I went outside to check the moon at ~4:30 the moon was completely obscured by clouds, I could just see light from the general location in the sky where it should be. I went outside about 15 minutes ago, and the moon was still obscured. As I was walking back to my house cursing, I looked through the trees close to my house and the moon was coming out of the clouds. I now have a clear unobscured view of the moon!!! About half of the moon is totally gone to the naked eye, but through my binoculars you can dimly see the top half of the moon. From the looks the clouds, the rest of the eclipse will be clearly visible to me right up till dawn!

[Beam]

It's almost entirely dark now, only a sliver remains, should begin to see the disk take on a reddish hue soon, probably within a half hour.

[Cyclenall]

The moon is now 80-85% dark now. I can see it thankfully because there are no clouds around at all.

[Beam]

Almost entirely obscured now, and you can see it visibly getting redder each minute, very beautiful.

[Chacor]

Rained the whole day here so it's very cloudy right now, hopefully it clears out before totality.

[Cyclenall]

It's now 100%!! It's not getting any more red though.

[Beam]

100% obscured, it's brown at the moment, getting brighter.

[NC George]

Totally gone! At my location, there is just the faintest orange glow visible like a broken halo in the sky, the upper portion (1/4) of the moon is totally invisible. The fact that the sun is coming up probably isn't helping visibility any. This is the best lunar eclipse I can remember seeing, if you didn't know there was an eclipse going on, you wouldn't be able to find the moon in the sky.

[Cyclenall]

I've never seen a lunar eclipse like this in my memory, I however wasn't trying to see one though anyways.

The colour of it is light brown, but it's not changing colour. The north part of it is slightly darker then the south side.

[NC George]

Hasta La Vista, Baby. The moon is gone until tomorrow at my location. I just went outside again, and there is no trace of the moon, naked eye or binocular. Guess that dawn thing really messes up visibility of a moon shining at 1/1000th of its normal brightness.

[Chacor]

Nothing here - clouds have ruined it, darned weather. I might get a chance later tonight after the moment of greatest eclipse (occurs in 28 minutes) fades.

[JonathanBelles]

I had a much greater view that I had thought I would. Its gone below the next house, but it was total 15-20 mins before it went down.

[Beam]

It doesn't appear to be getting a lot brighter as of yet, still a darker brownish color. Not quite as spectacular as the last one I saw in autumn 2004, which was an extraordinary deep red. Perhaps this one is just taking it's time.

[Cyclenall]

It's now 100% gone and I can't see it at all. Just saw a brownish colour with a very slight hint of red. NEXT!!

[RL3AO]

Nothing here - clouds have ruined it, darned weather. I might get a chance later tonight after the moment of greatest eclipse (occurs in 28 minutes) fades.

I know what you mean. It was perfect here. Just a couple of clouds. And then a nice batch of t-storms and I get nothin'.


Anywho, Americans will have another eclipse in February. Chacor, you have to wait until June 2011 for the next total lunar eclipse. But you will have a partial eclipse New Years Day (early morning) 2010.

[NC George]

My overall rating for this eclipse: #1 lunar I've seen, and #3 overall.

In previous lunars, I've either gotten clouds, or a bright coppery moon. I want to see that sucker totally disappear, and I did this morning.

#1 was when my class drove 4 hours west to be in the path of totality (actually annularity) of the May 30, 1984 solar eclipse. We went to a big field where 1000's of other teens were, and they had projectors set up to telescopes so we could actually see the sun without blinding ourselves. We got to see Bailey's beads. I might have been with Fred Espenak(!), as he was in Greensboro, too. Fred's pictures available at http://www.mreclipse.com/SEphoto/SEgall ... lery1.html

#2 was a partial eclipse while I attended NC State on July 11, 1991. While it was semi-cloudy that day, and I didn't have any equipment to view the sun directly, it was really neat seeing how dark it got all of a sudden, and there were beautiful dancing crescent shadows all over campus from the many tree leaves.

[O Town]

Man I couldn't see a thing The moon was too low on the horizon for me to spot it. I could tell last night around 11 from where the moon was then that it was going to be too low. Ah well, maybe next year.

[NC George]

Man I couldn't see a thing The moon was too low on the horizon for me to spot it. I could tell last night around 11 from where the moon was then that it was going to be too low. Ah well, maybe next year.

You probably started too late. When it first started, the moon was at least 2 fists over the horizon, easily visible to me even over the tree line and ridge that runs to the west of my house. Once it went total at around 5:51, though, it was only visible for about 15-20 minutes, then dawn came and it rapidly became too light to see the very dark moon.

[O Town]

I shouldn't have hit that snooze button 3 times huh?
I forgot about it till I got on line here about 6:20ish.

[JonathanBelles]

I started watching around 5:40.