Archive for the ‘Astrophotography’ Category

Lunar Eclipse

Wednesday, July 17th, 2019

Last night was spent collecting Moon Memories and trying to watch an lunar eclipse that was mainly hidden by annoyingly wispy clouds that you could almost see through!

It was a partial eclipse last night – the sort that turns the moon red – a blood moon – I saw a slither of fire-ruby red in Gloucester Park but it was smudged but the cloud and laying just above the noisy blinking lights of the fair ground.

This particular lunar eclipse actually started before the moon had risen in the sky – or at least in this part of the world that was the case. I could see friends posting fabulous pictures of the moon rise just a few miles over from where I stood – this was frustrating but kind of the way it is with astronomy to be honest.

I went home dejected but then managed to capture this image even with our kitten Potassium trying her best to cat-eclipse the moon for me!

Lunar eclipse partial 16th July 2019 Gloucester

We were going to get the telescope out and have a proper bash at getting some awesome photographs but the clouds never cleared enough to make that possible. In the end I managed to snap a few of the Earth’s shadow leaving the lunar surface with my hand held camera – I didn’t even have the tripod and there wasn’t time to play very much with exposure lengths before it was swallowed once more in a thicker more menacing cloud bank.

Cloud bank swallowing the eclipse

The Moon Last Night

Tuesday, July 16th, 2019

How often do we look at the moon – I mean really look at the moon?

It is always there, handing in the sky invidious states of completion. A finger nail slither or a baleful eye – luminous.

As part of MoonMania we have been playing with photographing the moon. And as it so happens this virtual festival of all things Lunar is starting off with a beautiful ripe moon hanging in the sky.

Last night’s sky was hung with wisps of cloud but still the moon peeped through to look at us and us to look at it.

This is one of the photos.

Moon on the 15-16 of July 2019