3-4 March 2007 - Total Lunar Eclipse
A perfect eclipse
by Lorenzo Comolli


Tradate (VA), Italy
45°42'44,4" N    8°54'26,1" E   height 305m

This eclipse was really perfect under many point of view: first of all the geometric conditions of the phenomena favoured the european region, and in particular Italy, with the eclipse very high in the sky and visible for the whole duration. Moreover, for the majority of the italian regions the metereological weather was perfect, with a near absence of clouds. So I've imaged the whole eclipse in all the phases, capturing over 1200 digital images, from 20 UT to 2.30 UT, with a time interval of only one minute. The results are shown here.
Animations


AVI animation of the whole ecliplse, from 20.02 UT to 2.30 UT, at 1 min steps. (10MB, divx codec required)
 GIF animation of the daily lunar libration, caused from the displacement of the observing site. Obtained from two images with a time interval of 7h 28m.


The main phases of the eclipse, aligned on the stars. The movement of the Moon is from top-right toward bottom-left. The images was realizet at 22.07 UT (half entrance partiality), 22.44 UT (start of totality), 23.21 UT (maximum), 23.58 UT (end of totality), 0.35 UT (half exit partiality). The star in the right part of the image is 54 Leonis of magnitude 5.9.
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope 20cm reduced at f/6.3, Canon EOS 350D, ISO 400 (part) and 800 (tot), exp times from 1/500s to 5s.


All the phases of the eclipse, from penumbra to penumbra. Each image is at 12 min steps.
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope 20cm reduced at f/6.3, Canon EOS 350D, ISO 400 (part) and 800 (tot), exp times from 1/1000s to 5s.


The maximum of the eclipse is when the Moon is darkest and show at best the red coloration. This image, centered at 23.21 UT, is obtained from averaging of 13 images (from 23.13 to 23.29 UT). The star in the right part of the image is 54 Leonis of magnitude 5.9.
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope 20cm reduced at f/6.3, Canon EOS 350D, ISO 800, 5s exp time.
[This image was published on the cover of Sky and Telescope, August 2007]


 The entrance and exit from the shadow show severe contrasts, from the region illuminated by the Sun and the shadowed one. This composition of 0.20 UT with HDR tecnique (High Dynamic Range) show at the same time the red/orange tints of the shadow and the grey illuminated region.
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope 20cm reduced at f/6.3, Canon EOS 350D, ISO 400, exp times of 1.6s, 0.3s, 1/10s, 1/40s, 1/160s.


Star trails and eclipse trail of the main phases, obtained on the same picture with an 8mm all-sky objective. The only fixed star is obviously Polaris.
Fujica reflex camera with 8mm f/16 objective, Kodak Elite 100 ISO film, exp time of 3h10m, centered on totality, from 21.46 UT to 0.56 UT.


A Moon eclipse is very different from a Sun ecliplse, that is capable of modifieing the local climate. So I've not recorded "serious" enviromental measurement. However during the filling of the photographic log, sometime I've recorded temperature and relative humidity. The resulting graph is here and seems to show a clear symmetric behaviour, centered on the maximum. During the central phases the temperature climbed 3°C and the RH went down. The explanation is simple: the fohn wind, as evidenced in the next figure.


This graphs show the enviromental measurements made by my friend Elia Cozzi, with his meteorological station, and are relative to the eclipse night and the preceding one. It's clear a similar trend, even if first night there was no eclipse. The explanation for the increase in the temperature is due to the hot wind from North, the fohn wind, that started at about 22 UT, as evidenced also from the wind speed measurement.


The usual color of the Moon is grey, but in truth there are very subtle colorations typical of the kind of rocks, in particular the blue tone are due to titanium rich rocks, while the red one are poorer. The Moon colors can be evidenced only with hi-dinamic images, such as this one obtained from an average of 60 frames imaged between 20.02 UT and 21.02 UT, before the start of the main phases of the eclipse (the penumbra was started from a little). Elaboration with a lot of color saturation.
Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope 20cm reduced at f/6.3, Canon EOS 350D, ISO 400, 1/1000s exp time.




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