Stephen Kennedy's Rants

For the last time for about the next three years, we will get to see a total lunar eclipse on Wednesday February 20th, 2008. The Eclipse is visible virtually every where in North America.

The moon will begin to move into the Earth’s shadow at approximately 6:30 PM Mountain time. At approximately 7:48 it will be completely in the earth’s shadow, where it could turn an ochre red or orange colour. The moon starts to come out of the earth’s shadow at approximately 9:07 PM and the eclipse ends at approximately 10:20 PM.

With the eclipse happening early in the evening, I am hoping for a clear night to be able to photograph all the different stages of the effect. Unlike the August Lunar eclipse where I fell asleep at 2:15 AM and missed the start at 3:00 AM. I managed to wake up at 6:00 AM and caught a small part of it.

The plan is to photograph using two different telescopes (and two cameras) to catch the event. I will also have a couple of other scopes set up for visual observing.

The eclipse will be perfectly visible with the naked eye, through binoculars, or through small scopes.

I will be inviting neighbours over to view if they wish to see any of it through the scopes.

Hopefully the night will be clear tomorrow  giving us a great view of the last lunar eclipse for North American’s in the near future.

Stephen