Partial solar eclipse photos...

Here are some photos from Tuesday's partial solar eclipse (the eclipse was annular in parts of Antarctica).

At the beginning, the eclipse was clearly visible from Kiama as the Sun descended in the west. Notice the sunspots:

But the cloud cover got thicker as the Sun descended:

Pretty soon the clouds put an end to the show and the Sun disappeared for good. :(

Tips for observing meteor showers...

Nine important tips for observing meteor showers, by David Finlay:

1. I've never observed a meteor shower where I've been warm. For some reason they are always at the wrong time of year. Dress warmly. It can be very uncomfortable if you're cold at night while you're looking at the stars.

2. A blanket, pillow and reclining chair (you'll get a sore neck otherwise), along with a hot drink and some munchies are almost essential.

3. Check the weather predictions beforehand. Weatherzone is my preference.

5. Meteor showers are usually best between 2am and sunrise. If you're only going to observe for a few minutes or half an hour, observe around 4am.

6. Don't waste your time on small showers. Disappointment in not seeing anything can ruin a good night otherwise spent sleeping, and can discourage further viewing of astronomical events. There's nothing worse than a fizzer! Save your effort for the best showers, like the Eta Aquarids in May and the Perseids in August. Keep an eye out for information on meteor outbursts. Sometimes a normal meteor shower can turn into a storm, like the Leonid outburst in 2001. With one fireball every 3 seconds or better, a meteor storm is an event not to be missed!

7. For photography, a digital SLR with tripod and cable release, and a wide angle lens to cover as much of the sky as possible is required. Manual setting, 30 second exposure, f2.8 or lower (or as low as you can go), ISO1600-3200, white balance 4,200K. Reduce the shutter time if there is a bright moon or light pollution. Use your biggest memory card, lock the cable release button down and take as many continuous photos as you can. Even if you don't capture any meteors, you can always combine your photos into a beautiful time lapse sequence. Try to combine the photo with something in the foreground, like the ghostly branches of a dead tree, a lake, mountain, something other than just plain sky.

8. Bring a friend. The only thing worse than being cold at night is being alone with nobody to talk to. Good conversation can fill the dull periods, and you want to be able to share the really bright meteors with somebody else.

9. Every time you see a bright meteor, you've got to say WAAUUUGGGHHHHHHH! It's a rule. Really, it is.

Observing meteor showers

Photo: David Finlay

Leonid Observing Report Monday 19th November 2001 by David Finlay

Member of the Wollongong Amateur Astronomy Club (WAAC)

Observing Location: Orange, NSW, Australia

Living in Wollongong, a large coastal city an hours drive south of Sydney, I find that more often than not astronomical events are interrupted by bad weather. I have tried to observe the Leonids from ’96 onwards only to have the weather turn promising nights into disasters. With good predictions for activity in Australia in 2001 I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from observing my first meteor storm.

I am starting to believe the Leonids bring bad weather with them. On Sunday night (the storm was predicted for 4am Monday morning) the clouds dutifully rolled in from the south and parked right above half the state. I switched to “Plan B” and called a fellow Astronomy club member, Rudi Vavra, who was staying in Lithgow on the other side of the Blue Mountains, and my Father, John Finlay, who lives in Orange. They both said the weather was clear where they were and seeing as Lithgow is on the road to Orange I packed my bag and headed off on a four-hour driving adventure.

Orange is three hours drive west of Sydney and is where I fell in love with the sky as a child. When I arrived in Lithgow to meet up with Rudi, there was more cloud on the way so we decided that Orange was the best place to go.

At 11pm we set up camp half way between Orange and Bathurst at a place called Macquarie Woods. It was bitterly cold. The wind chill factor would have put the temperature well below freezing. The next day we found out that it had been snowing on the outskirts of Orange. We were not surprised.

Cloud began to move in from the east at 1am so we drove a bit further until we were almost at Orange airport. Hoping that the farmer whose front yard we had parked in wouldn’t come out and shoot us, we bunkered down in Rudi’s wagon waiting for the show to begin.

At precisely 2:15am, peering out the front windscreen, we saw two faint earth-grazers chase each other from the eastern horizon all the way to the west. Ten minutes later we saw another horizon-to-horizon grazer. These things just seemed to glide across the sky like missiles. We nicknamed them “Scuds”.

At 2:30am we began to see real Leonids blazing across the sky. They were coming in at a rate of about one every two minutes. We observed bright white and faint, green fireballs for another 15 minutes before the cloud caught up with us again and we had to move. It was very frustrating because we knew that we were missing out on observing the Leonids by having to get in the cars and move to another location again.

For the next forty-five minutes we madly drove around the outskirts of Orange desperately seeking a clear patch of sky. The whole time we were driving we could see fireballs through gaps in the cloud whizzing past the cars like someone was shooting tracer bullets at us.

About 10 km west of Orange we decided that we were missing out on too much activity and pulled off the road up a dirt track. We could see about sixty per cent of the sky. The meteors were coming thick and fast by this stage, at least fifteen to twenty per minute. They seemed to come in flurries, where several would follow each other into a fiery oblivion. I called my Father and set my red flashing light on the main road and before we knew it he was observing with us.

We observed meteors like this until 5:10am when it began to rain and the Sun had almost peaked above the horizon. The radiant was easy to see with every single meteor pointing back to its origin. We saw lots of small bright meteors around the radiant, huge fireballs trailing sparks through Crux and Orion, and a lot that began their death-plunge on the opposite side of the sky on the western horizon. We saw one meteor that was bright enough to leave shadows on the ground and a glowing green trail that was visible for five minutes.

It was an absolutely amazing experience. If I ever have the opportunity to see a meteor storm again I’d travel twice as far to see it. If I had the money I would travel around the world.

Once we arrived at my parent’s place for coffee it was virtually daylight with ninety per cent cloud cover. When I stepped out of my car I saw another fireball directly above. If conditions were better I could almost imagine observing them in broad daylight. Definitely worth the drive!

Ghost Moon revealed!

We had to travel quite a way to get out from under the weather, but we did manage to witness  (and photograph) the total lunar eclipse. We caught the Ghost Moon in the act! :)

It rose over the horizon invisible, a Ghost Moon. But as the sky slowly darkened, the eclipsed Moon slowly revealed itself:

larger version

larger version

larger version

Totality is finished and the Moon is starting to move out of Earth's shadow:

larger version

Ghost Moon

(lunar eclipse of 28 August 2007)

Press Release:

On April 15th, Tuesday night, just after sunset, a total lunar eclipse will be visible along the east coast of Australia.

But this is a really bizarre eclipse; it occurs right on sunset, and the sky will be so bright that the moon will at first be almost entirely invisible. It will be there, but you won't be able to see it.

This is due to a few reasons. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is completely full; the entire sunlit side of the moon faces the earth. When the moon is REALLY full, it lines up perfectly behind the earth and the earth's shadow covers it, causing a lunar eclipse.

The eclipse will already be well and truly underway by the time the moon rises almost due east over the ocean. It will rise during the deepest part of the eclipse, meaning it's going to be almost impossible to see with light from the setting sun still dominating the sky.

But over the next 30 minutes the sky will get darker, and if you're luck enough to have good weather, you'll see the apparition of a blood red moon suddenly appear out of nowhere on the horizon.

With astronomical events like this, you can see why they used to be portents of doom

I'm calling this one the "Ghost Moon", for obvious reasons. One minute it won't be there, the next it will. The term Ghost Moon actually refers to the seventh full moon in the Chinese calendar, but I think on this occasion I'll borrow it as the description for the eclipse on Tuesday.

You can still see the eclipse from other areas of Australia, but the further west you go the later the moon will rise, making it much harder to see the total phase. People further west will still be able to see the partial phase of the eclipse, but it won't be anything like seeing the "Ghost Moon".

Myself and Rudi Vavra will be chasing and attempting to film this event for an independent science documentary series we are trying to create, called CLEAR SKIES. Weather will be a big determining factor of who gets to see the Ghost Moon, but hopefully we can capture it in its glory to share with other people as well.

We encourage people to follow us on Twitter @clearskiestv and @rudiphoto to get live updates of astronomical events visible in Australia. We saw Aurora Australis a few months ago from Kiama, NSW, and a few of our followers were fortunate enough to see and photograph aurora for the first time.

Lets hope for Clear Skies on Tuesday!

(Press Release written by: David Finlay, Photo: Rudi Vavra)