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Waxing crescent moon seen from GCO.

The evening began before the scheduled lab start time of 7:15 PM with an attempt to see a rocket launch from NASA’s Wallops Island facility. Unfortunately, the launch was scrubbed at the last minute due to a boat in the restricted hazard area. For context, here is a view of a Wallops launch from 2013. We were, however, able to see a flyover of the International Space Station almost overhead a few minutes later. It looks like a bright, slowly moving star. Want to see the station yourself? It’s not difficult. Visit www.heavens-above.com or spotthestation.nasa.gov.

Then we began the lab proper. After a review of celestial sphere concepts, and an introduction to the concept of light pollution, we took a tour of the night sky.

Two compound Meade telescopes were on the observing platform. We reviewed their parts and some concepts form the “Telescopes and Lenses” lab. The waxing cresent ooon in the SW made a great first telescope object. Later, high clouds were moving through, but we were able to see M57, the Ring Nebula, in the constellation Lyra. After everyone had seen it, we used the SBIG 402 CCD camera to take a few images, as you can see below. All in all, a pretty successful night out.

12 second exposure with no filter.

Combination of 3 exposures through red, blue, and green filters. Real glass filters, not the Instagram kind! Unfortuantely, there was some equipment movement in both of these shots, thus the ‘double’ appearance of stars.

Crescent moon with earthshine clearly visible.

The eclipse at 6:00 PM local, only about 2 finger-widths above the horizon

We hope you got to see the lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of Oct 8. There is another eclipse, this time a partial one of the sun, on Oct 23. We are in an eclipse season, an approximately 34-day window in which eclipses occur. This one is much more difficult to see. An observer armed with proper protection, such as a pinhole projector*, can see the moon just barely taking a bite out of the sun before sunset. The eclipse begins at 5:50 PM with the sun only a few finger-widths away from setting. In Gettysburg it sets at 6:18. Observers in the northwestern US will get a much better show, but the eclipse is not total anywhere (on earth).

Great eclipse article from Phil Plait on Slate

*EYE SAFETY DURING SOLAR ECLIPSES  (NASA)

photo by Ian Clarke

Here is our view of the eclipse this morning. This was taken from S. Reynolds Ave just west of Gettysburg at 6:25 AM EDT, the beginning of totality. I believe that’s the 121st PA Infantry monument in the foreground. We were fortunate. Despite a rainy first half of the night, skies cleared out in time to view the entire eclipse (or as much as was visible before local sunrise).

I hope locals are ready for the lunar eclipse tonight. Current forecasts are mixed, with the cleardarksky.com forecast being a little more optimistic than the one from Accuweather. But even a few breaks in the clouds may be enough to see yourself some eclipse.

Here is a quick summary:

1. Set the alarm for around 5 AM (all times local)
2. Get out to a place with an unobstructed western view
3. Find the moon, about 2 fist-widths up in the west
4. Partial phase begins at 5:15 (shadow of the earth starts creeping across the moon)
5. Totality starts at 6:25 (meanwhile the moon will be getting lower and the sky will be getting brighter).
6. At 6:45 PM civil twightlight begins
7. At 7:12 the sun rises, and at 7:17 the moon sets. Show over.

Show times: 7 PM on Tuesday, 9/30, and 4:00 PM on Sunday, 10/5. The shows, as always, are free and open to the public, and they run about 50 minutes.

Top on the agenda this month will be the total eclipse of the moon that will be visible here in the early morning hours of October 8. There will also be a partial eclipse of the sun later in the month. Technically, it’s also visible locally though only by the barest of margins. The moon will begin to take a tiny bite out of the sun just about a half hour before sunset. Locations west of us will see the eclipse for longer, with the western half of the US seeing the whole show. In some locations that will mean more than half of the sun being obscured by the moon.

**Never look at the sun without proper precautions.**