JANUARY 20-21: TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE
LINKS
18 Jan 2000
Blood-red eclipse no glasses required!
The new year starts with another eclipse. No need however to retrieve those special sunglasses left over from last August! On the night of 20-21 January, we will be offered a total lunar eclipse.More at: http://sci.esa.int/newsitem.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=8851&Storytype=23
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TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MOON
The night of January 20th marks a total eclipse of the Moon visible for all of the Americas, and for Europe on the morning of the 21st. You may detect the first pale shading encroaching on the Moon's eastern side around 9:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (2:30 January 21st Universal Time). Partial eclipse begins at 10:01 p.m. EST; this is when the Moon's eastern limb first enters the umbra (dark inner portion) of the Earth's shadow. Total eclipse runs from 11:05 p.m. to 12:22 a.m. EST, when the Moon is entirely inside the umbra; during this time the Moon should glow a deep, dim orange-red. Then partial eclipse returns until 1:25 a.m. EST. The final penumbral shading disappears around 1:55 a.m. EST. (Convert these times to your time zone.) For more information, including special observing projects for telescopes and binoculars, see the January Sky & Telescope, page 109.More celestial events, sky maps, and news of the world's astronomy research appear each month in SKY & TELESCOPE, the essential magazine of astronomy. See our enormous Web site and astronomy bookstore at http://www.skypub.com. Clear skies! SKY & TELESCOPE, P.O. Box 9111, Belmont, MA 02478 * 617-864-7360
Lunar Photography Contest
Total Lunar Eclipse
January 20, 2000On the evening of January 20, 2000, viewers in North America will be able to observe a total eclipse of the moon. This will be the best lunar eclipse visible from North America since 1996. The next good lunar eclipse visible from North America will not be until May 2003.
The American Association of Amateur Astronomers is looking for the best photograph of the Lunar Eclipse of January 20-21, 2000. This contest is open to anyone who has never had an astronomy photograph published. The photograph may be either color or black and white. You do not need to be a member of the AAAA to enter.
Submit your photograph via e-mail as an attached JPG file or GIF file no larger than 400x600 pixels. Be sure to include your name, telephone number, address, and email address of the photographer along with your entry. Please, only one entry per person.
All entries must be received no later than February 26th, 2000. All entries will be judged by the board of the American Association of Amateur Astronomers. The winning entry will be selected by March 1, 2000, and the winner will be notified. All photographs become property of the American Association of Amateur Astronomers and will not be returned. By submitting an entry you agree to have it displayed on our web site and printed in our newsletter.
The person whose photograph is selected as the winning photograph will win a one year subscription to either Astronomy Magazine or Sky & Telescope Magazine, and a one year individual membership to the American Association of Amateur Astronomers.
Submit your photographs to AAAA Vice-President and Webmaster Ed Flaspoehler at our e-mail address skyglance@aol.com
About the Lunar Eclipse
Lunar eclipses occur when the full moon passes through the Earth's shadow. Usually the full moon passes either north or south of the Earth's shadow in its monthly orbit around the Earth, and no eclipse occurs. When the moon skims the Earth's shadow, a partial lunar eclipse occurs. But on January 20, the moon will pass completely into the shadow of the Earth, producing a striking Total Lunar Eclipse.Maximum eclipse occurs at 11:44 PM EST (8:44 PST) on the evening of January 20. The first contact of the moon with the Earth's shadow, resulting in the first visible touch of darkness on the moon's surface, occurs at 9:45 PM EST. The total phase of this eclipse ends at 12:22 AM on January 21, 2000.
Observers with telescopes and binoculars can watch as the edge of the Earth's shadow crosses individual craters on the surface of the moon. If you wish to photograph this eclipse, mount your 35-mm camera on a tripod and take scenic views with a red colored moon as part of your composition. Exposure times on ISO 200 film should be 1/60 second for partial phases at f/8, and 2 seconds at f/4 for the total phases. You may also photograph the eclipse through your telescope. Exposure times will depend on the exact setup of your equipment.
A lunar eclipse throws an eerie reddish color across the face of the moon. Earth's atmosphere acts like a prism, bending a little sunlight into the shadow and giving it a copper tint. In essence, what falls on the eclipsed moon is the light of all the sunsets and sunrises on Earth.
Ed Flaspoehler, Vice President
American Association of Amateur Astronomers
Reprinted with permission from the New York Institute of Photography website
How to Photograph This Month's Lunar Eclipse
On the night of January 20, a total lunar eclipse will be visible across all of America. While lunar eclipses don't elicit the excitement of a solar eclipse among many devotees of astronomy, it's still a great celestial event to watch. "A lunar eclipse is also a great opportunity for photography," explains Chuck DeLaney, Dean of the New York Institute of Photography. "Unlike a solar eclipse, photographing the moon is easy and doesn't require complicated filters and excessive precautions. So why not get out in the night air and try your hand at astrophotography?"On the New York Institute of Photography's Website this month there is a comprehensive article on how to photograph both a full moon and the moon during a lunar eclipse. According to NYI, once the moon enters totality (which will be at 11:04pm in New York City and three hours earlier in San Francisco) put your camera on manual exposure. An exposure of 1 second at f/2.8 using ISO 400 speed film is a good starting place. NYI suggests that you'll need a tripod to steady your camera and you'll be wise to "bracket" your exposure by using a variety of exposure combinations to put different amounts of light on the film.
You don't need a monster telephoto lens to record the eclipse. While a 300mm lens with a tele-extender is a great tool for dramatic close-ups, you can also use a shorter lens and include some scenery in the frame. For example, a tree in silhouette can make a dramatic addition to an eclipse photo. If you live in a city, you may be able to include the skyline in your photo. NYI suggests that you study various outdoor locations for a night or two before the eclipse to decide how to make the most effective composition with your equipment, the moon's position, and the terrain in your neighborhood.
For a complete article on photographing the moon, along with information about the times of moon rise, the start of the eclipse and totality in your area, visit the New York Institute of Photography website.
I have an astronomy application called LunarPhase which will display the eclipse circumstances for your location. All you need to do is give it your latitude and longitude. All times displayed are in local time (not UT).
Gary Nugent
Dublin Night Sky Observer
AstroAlert: Eclipse meteors & grazes
1. Lunar meteor impact flashes during the lunar eclipse.2. Good grazes during the eclipse, L.A. to Virginia, some not in IOTA data.
David Dunham, IOTA, 2000 Jan. 20
If you are not swamped with publicity efforts, there are a couple of useful research projects that can be done during the total lunar eclipse: 1. The darkened Moon provides a good opportunity to use large telescopes to try to record faint lunar meteor impact flashes. The best areas to image are the advancing (eastern, astronomical sense - Oceanus Procellarum) edge of the Moon where meteors will generally strike with larger velocity and hence give brighter flashes, and the core of the umbra, where fainter flashes can be detected. The eclipsed Moon is red, which makes it brighter with most red-sensitive CCD video cameras, so that works against detection, but does bring out lunar features for locating any flashes that might be recorded.
2. Occultations during the eclipse - see pages 112 and 113 of the January issue of Sky and Telescope (that is probably also online at http://www.skypub.com - look under "Sights"). Predictions for some grazes were included in the IOTA distribution, the best in the USA being one of 8.4-mag. SAO 97665 whose northern limit passes over the Los Angeles area and east into Arizona and northern New Mexico, where the end of the eclipse starts interfering. Also, southern- limit grazes of VV Cancri will be visible from n. New Mexico to Virginia, and of SAO 97632 from Texas to s. Georgia - see below. It looks like southern Calif. will be clouded out (mostly), while it should be mostly clear in the south-central and southeastern parts of the USA. In Virginia, Thursday's storm should pass out to sea, leaving clear skies for the eclipse, but I do not plan to lead DC-area observers to Richmond for the VV Cnc graze. Detailed path data for the 3 grazes mentioned above, at 0.125-deg. intervals, will be placed on IOTA's Web site perhaps by about 0h UT Jan. 21. A little more info. about these grazes, with limit data at 2-deg. intervals, is below:
a. SAO 97665:
This is the best graze in the U.S.A. during the total lunar eclipse, with the northern limit graze zone passing over the Los Angeles area (near LAX, Whittier, and San Bernardino) and on east to near Sedona, Arizona.
EVENT: JAN. 21, 2000 STAR: MOON: 0% SUNLIT,ECLIPSE NORTHERN LIMIT GRAZE HIP 40327, MAG. 8.4 PHASE-ANGLE: 179.6 DELTAT: 64.12 SEC. USNO X 12440 SAO 97665 SPEC. K0 STAR IS DOUBLE.PRIMARY MAG. 9.2 STAR-CODE X, SECONDARY MAG. 9.2, SEP. 0.10 SEC.OF ARC AT POS.ANGLE 272 DEG EAST LONG. NORTH LAT. UNIVERS.TIME MOON MOON SUN POS.ANGLE UMBRAL DEG. MIN. DEG. MIN. HR MIN SEC ALT. AZI. TANZ ALT. OF GRAZE DIST. -118 0.0 33 57.09 5 8 15.5 48.1 98.2 0.90 -49.0 3.49 0.531 -116 0.0 34 16.54 5 11 5.6 50.3 100.5 0.83 -51.2 3.89 0.502 -112 0.0 34 48.69 5 17 2.9 54.6 105.7 0.71 -55.4 4.74 0.439 -111 0.0 34 55.27 5 18 35.5 55.6 107.1 0.68 -56.5 4.96 0.422 GEODETIC DATUM USED: NORTH AMERICAN 1927 (USA) STAR CATALOG: XZ80P PREDICTION GRAZEREG-VER. 2000 BY IOTA/ES, E. RIEDEL, AND David Dunham, IOTA RESULT OF OBSERVER SCAN CITY COUNTRY E.LONG. N.LAT. OBSERVER/STATION DISTANCE, UT CLOSEST LosAlams NM -106.267 35.886 Gene Mroz 40 MI. UT 5.4379 Flagstaf AZ -111.745 35.190 Fried,Hobart,&Sudol xx 24 MI. UT 5.2921 Prescott AZ -112.390 34.551 Fulton Wright, Jr. 15 MI. UT 5.2733 Riversid CA -117.350 33.983 Wilcox, Cheryl RAS&Axx 5.3 MI. UT 5.1524 Pomona CA -117.816 34.063 Alesofia xx 5.4 MI. UT 5.1424 LakeWood CA -118.125 33.835 D. P. WERNER 6.5 MI. UT 5.1343 TORRANCE CA -118.313 33.815 J. Collins zz 5.6 MI. UT 5.1299
b. Limit data are given below for the southern-limit grazes during the total lunar eclipse of VV Cancri (SAO 97631, expected mag. 9.5) visible from northern New Mexico, across Kansas (well s. of Kansas City) and Missouri (s. of St. Louis), near Louisville, KY and Richmond, VA, and of 8.5-mag. SAO 97631 visible from n. of Austin and Houston, TX, near Baton Rouge, LA, and over southernmost Georgia just north of Jacksonville, FL. These grazes were not in the standard IOTA predictions. The Occult profile indicates that the best range for observers will be from the southern limit lines to about 1.5 miles north of them.
Grazing Occultation of SAO 97631 (VV Cancri), sp. M5, Mag 9.5
Friday 2000 January 21
Umbral %
Longitude Latitude UT Alt Az TanZ PA WA Dist.
Sunlit
o o ' h m s Sn Mn o o o
-110.0000 +35 38.28 4 01 19 41 95 1.15 182.5 168.74 94.00U 2E
-108.0000 +36 2.73 4 04 08 43 97 1.07 182.8 169.05 92.00U 0E
-106.0000 +36 25.25 4 07 05 45 99 0.99 183.1 169.39 90.00U 0E
-104.0000 +36 45.73 4 10 10 47 102 0.92 183.5 169.76 88.00U 0E
-102.0000 +37 4.12 4 13 22 50 104 0.85 183.9 170.14 86.00U 0E
-100.0000 +37 20.30 4 16 41 52 107 0.79 184.3 170.54 84.00U 0E
-98.0000 +37 34.22 4 20 08 54 110 0.73 184.7 170.96 83.00U 0E
-96.0000 +37 45.80 4 23 41 56 113 0.68 185.2 171.40 81.00U 0E
-94.0000 +37 54.98 4 27 21 58 117 0.63 185.6 171.86 80.00U 0E
-92.0000 +38 1.70 4 31 07 60 121 0.58 186.1 172.34 79.00U 0E
-90.0000 +38 5.87 4 34 59 62 125 0.54 186.6 172.83 78.00U 0E
-88.0000 +38 7.45 4 38 58 64 130 0.50 187.1 173.33 78.00U 0E
-86.0000 +38 6.37 4 43 02 65 135 0.46 187.6 173.85 77.00U 0E
-84.0000 +38 2.57 4 47 12 67 141 0.43 188.1 174.39 77.00U 0E
-82.0000 +37 56.00 4 51 27 68 147 0.40 188.7 174.92 78.00U 0E
-80.0000 +37 46.60 4 55 46 70 154 0.37 189.2 175.46 78.00U 0E
-78.0000 +37 34.33 5 00 10 71 163 0.35 189.8 176.01 79.00U 0E
-76.0000 +37 19.13 5 04 38 72 172 0.33 190.3 176.56 81.00U 0E
97631 = Vv CNC, 10.50 to 11.50P (brighter in V), Var Type LB
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
c. Grazing Occultation of SAO 97632, sp. F5, Mag. 9.1
Friday 2000 January 21
Nominal Site Altitude 0 m
Longitude Latitude UT Alt Az TanZ PA WA Umbral %
o ' '' o ' '' h m s Sn Mn o o o Dist.
Sunlit
-100.0000 +30 8.33 4 13 03 52 97 0.77 183.8 170.01 86.00U 0E
-98.0000 +30 24.38 4 16 51 55 100 0.70 184.3 170.50 84.00U 0E
-96.0000 +30 37.87 4 20 48 57 102 0.64 184.8 171.00 82.00U 0E
-94.0000 +30 48.67 4 24 54 60 105 0.58 185.3 171.53 81.00U 0E
-92.0000 +30 56.68 4 29 09 62 108 0.52 185.9 172.09 79.00U 0E
-90.0000 +31 1.80 4 33 33 65 112 0.47 186.4 172.67 78.00U 0E
-88.0000 +31 3.93 4 38 05 67 116 0.42 187.0 173.27 77.00U 0E
-86.0000 +31 2.98 4 42 44 70 121 0.37 187.7 173.89 77.00U 0E
-84.0000 +30 58.88 4 47 31 72 127 0.33 188.3 174.52 77.00U 0E
-82.0000 +30 51.53 4 52 24 74 134 0.28 188.9 175.17 78.00U 0E
-80.0000 +30 40.88 4 57 23 76 143 0.25 189.6 175.82 78.00U 0E
-79.0000 +30 34.30 4 59 54 77 149 0.23 189.9 176.15 79.00U 0E
97632 is a Double Star: 9.4 & 12.5, Sepn 3.71, PA 314
Graze Path of Secondary 4.19km S, and 7.7 secs. earlier cf. primary.
Joan and David Dunham
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