Jeff's November 8th, 2003 Lunar Eclipse Page

                                                                                                                                                      

Hi, my name is Jeff, and welcome to my "Lunar Eclipse" Page!

On the evening of November 8th, 2003 I went out to the Fox Valley Astronomical Society's public viewing site in Geneva, IL to view and photograph the eclipse. For more lunar eclipse information click here.


Upon arriving, the skies overhead were clear, but out to the East where the Moon was rising, the skies were cloudy as seen in the 1st picture.  The Clear Sky Clock for Geneva predicted that the skies would clear by 7:00 PM, and they did!  Over 100 members of the public came out to view this event with us!  We had a GREAT time!


It was pretty cold out that night, and the halo around the Moon in my last picture of the evening, 9:04 PM, was caused by frost on the camera lens!  I also experienced battery problems in my camera due to the cold temperatures but managed to get a few good pictures.


Here are some of my pictures of the various stages of Saturday night's eclipse.   ENJOY!!

5:12 PM

5:47 PM

5:52 PM

6:04 PM

6:17 PM

6:30 PM

6:38 PM

6:47 PM

6:39 PM

8:08 PM

7:06 PM

7:11 PM

8:09 PM

8:44 PM

9:04 PM

The pictures above were taken with a Sony Mavica MVC-CD1000 Digital Camera mounted on a tripod.  Most of the pictures were taken at the camera's full zoom power of 20x.  As you can see in a few of the pictures, I used different camera settings to obtain different results!


For visual observing, I was using a Celestron Wide View 80-mm F/5 Refractor on a CG-3 Equatorial Mount with tracking drive, a set of Apogee 15x50 45º tripod-mounted binoculars, and a Meade 12.5-inch Dobsonian Reflector with Magellan-1 computer.

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In addition, I shot a couple of pictures with a Sony MVC-FD81 Digital Camera held up to the eyepiece of my Meade 12.5-inch Dob (afocal astrophotography).  Here are two of them:

Click for Lombard, Illinois Forecast

 

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