Location: at home in Tomball, TX
Cloud cover: less than 5%
Transparency: average (3/5)
Seeing: avg (3/5) or sometimes slightly better
Darkness: no moon, city glow
Wind: almost none
Temperature: 76º-82º
Humidity: 57%-67%
Dew Point: 65º
Time: 10:00 pm – 12:30 am CDT
OTA: 8″ SCT
Guidescope: 70mm refractor

First light with guidescope. Very disappointed to discover PHD Guiding software did not recognize the NexImage and it claimed my scope did not support pulse mode. Fiddled with it longer than I should have. Bottom line: zero success.

Guidescope was very useful for making fine adjustments while D50 was attached to the main scope. Best practice using laptop to view real-time output from NexImage in the guidescope, but eyepiece use works ok, too.

Tried to image Jupiter, photos were awfully blurry. First image seemed to show moon touching jupiter’s limb, no other moons. Tried again with ep. No moons visible, black spot visible at edge. Re-installed D50, tried to re-focus, star image was an irregularly shaped streak even with relatively short exposure times less than 1/10 second. I suspect vibration from the shutter, but it was late and I was tired of trying to debug it.

Finally reverted to visual observation. By this time two distinct black spots were visible. I thought I was seeing a double eclipse, but later cross-ref with SNP and SkyViewCafe indicated one spot was the shadow of Europa and the other Ganymede itself. In the illustration below, the top spot is the shadow of Europa and the bottom spot is Ganymede.

Illustration of Eclipse on Jupiter's clouds

Location: Tomball, TX

About 10:30pm

Conditions: initially clear, slightly humid

Setup and aligned telescope. First target Jupiter. Clearly saw black circle of a moon’s shadow on Jupiter’s disk. Within minutes clouds appeared overhead and ended the session.

Clouds, clouds, clouds, rain, and … did I mention clouds? How am I supposed to see the eclipse?

Woke about 4:20 am this morning to watch the total lunar eclipse.

The moon was already halfway into earth’s shadow when I began. I experimented with using the web cam to capture the event. I didn’t expect great results, but the webcam turned out to be completely worthless for the purpose I had in mind.

I started observing in the back yard. The back neighbors had a bright halogen yard light, so I moved around the side of the house after totality. Best results in both locations came with the Bushnell 12×50 binoculars mounted on a tripod.

A few minutes before totality I could perceive the moon not as a disc but as a sphere. This must certainly have been by some effect of the lighting because the moon is too distant to be perceived in three dimensions by human vision.

The color during totality was beautiful. Early on I saw red-orange at the 4 o’clock and 10 o’clock edges, with blue-white at the 7 o’clock edge. The center was quite dark, and the edge was indistinct at 1 o’clock. Without the binoculars the color was more striking and seemed to cover the lower half. Over time the colors seemed to shift subtly, with some areas growing dimmer, others growing redder.

Conditions were generally fair. There were few clouds at first, then more as totality approached. There were times when the moon was completely obscured for a minute or more. I thought the clouds would only get worse, so I brought the computer and webcam inside and coiled the extension cord. Then the clouds dissipated and I watch the dark red moon for some thirty minutes or so. Amanda came out and watched for a few minutes as well.

Sigma Aquarii was clearly visible in the binocular field of view above and to the left of the eclipsed moon. It made me wonder how rare it would be to see a planetary conjunction with a full moon.

The lower the moon sank in the sky the more obstructed the view from haze and occasional clouds, so I went back to bed before 6 am.

Quick (if belated) updated. There were clouds on the horizon at moonrise the night of the eclipse. Of course, the rest of the sky was clear. By the time the moon had risen above the clouds it was mostly (about 2/3) out of the earth’s shadow. I watched it for a while with the binoculars, but no pictures.

There’s another eclipse in August. Maybe the weather will be better then.

Next Saturday night there will be a total lunar eclipse visible in Europe, Africa, and the eastern half of North America. For residents of east coast of the U.S and Canada, the moon will rise on Saturday night fully eclipsed. If you live inthe midwest, you may only be able to see the eclipse for an hour or so after the moon rises, depending on your exact location. This means that to get a good view you must find a place where you can see the horizon at sunset.

I will, of course, be trying my luck, weather permitting. Maybe even get some pictures, who knows?

You can learn much more about the eclipse at space.com, including exact times (by time zone) when the moon will be at totality and when it will exit the earth’s shadow.

Enjoy!