Derby and District Astronomical Society
The Total Lunar Eclipse
3rd-4th March 2007
[Gallery]
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Adrian Brown took this image of the lunar eclipse of the 3rd March 2007 at 23:07 UT. He used 10 second exposures through red, green and blue filters, with an 80ED refractor and ATK16HR CCD camera. Image Credit: Adrian Brown.
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DDAS member Chris Newsome produced this montage of images from the lunar eclipse of the 3rd-4th March 2007. Heused an un-modified Canon EOS300D camera through a Skywatcher 102T refractor on a Celestron ASGT mount and a Baader Fringe Killer filter. The exposure details are for totality......single 6 second exposures at 100 ASA. No processing, they are exactly as they came off of the camera. For the partial phase......1/25 and 1/250 second at 100 ASA. The images were overlayed and opacity adjusted to show the shape of the shadow. All the images were montaged onto a black background, the partial phases being placed so as to show the shape and size of the shadow of the Earth in relation to the path the Moon took through it. After the Moon had passed the meridian, Chris had to flip the mount round to carry on tracking, although for some reason it wouldn't follow the Moon so between each shot he took on the night (every five minutes) he had to manually push the scope to get the moon in the FOV (he thinks he had incorrectly moved the scope and it thought that it couldn't go any further!). Image Credit: Chris Newsome.
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Chris also created a movie of the eclipse. The first frame was taken at about 22:00 UT and the last at about 00:05, a few minutes after totality ended. The movie shows the passage of the Moon between the stars 59 Leonis (on the left) and 56 Leonis (on the right). The partial phases are 1 second exposures and the totality phases are 6 second exposures. These were taken at 100 ASA with a Canon EOS300D camera through a Skywatcher 102T telescope. None of the images received any processing, they are as they came off the camera. The images were aligned (on both stars) using MaximDL and then compiled into an AVI file. Click on the link below to download and play the 295 KB Windows Media File. If you encounter problems you may have to right-click on the link and choose the 'Save Link As' or 'Save Target As' option to save the file onto your computer first before opening it using the player of your choice. |
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DDAS member Malcolm Neal took the following pictures of the total lunar eclipse of the 3rd-4th March 2007 on an unguided mount using a Canon EOS 300D digital camera and a 170-500 mm zoom lens at 400 ASA. Image Credit: Malcolm Neal.
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 22:49 UT 2 seconds at f/5.6 and 500 mm (800 mm equivalent with CCD multiplier) |
 23:12 UT 8 seconds at f/5 and 170 mm |
 23:23 UT 6 seconds at f/5.6 and 500 mm |
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The following 1.1 MB animated GIF of the total lunar eclipse of the 3rd-4th March 2007 was constructed by Mike Lancaster from over 50 separate images he took of the event. The animation compresses 4 hours of eclipse watching and covers the entire umbral phases from around 21:12 UT for the first frame until 01:13 UT for the last. The inner and darkest part of the Earth's shadow (the umbra) impinged on the Moon's disc at 21:30 UT. Totality lasted for an hour with mid eclipse at 23:21 UT. At 11:58 UT the Moon began to exit the umbral shadow, and cleared it by 01:11. Mike used an Olympus Camedia C4000Z digital camera hand-held at the eyepiece of a Meade LX-90 telescope. A 40 mm super-Plossl eyepiece was used and the camera employed a 7 mm lens. The images cover a variety of exposure times, are mostly at f2.8 and have been scaled down from an original size of 2288 x 1712 pixels. Adobe Photoshop Elements was used to create the animated GIF from the best of around 100 shots of the eclipse.
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DDAS member Mike Lancaster observed the lunar eclipse of the 3rd March 2007 with his neighbours Wayne and Hayley Barnett. Wayne took these images of the eclipse using a Nikon D70 digital SLR with a 300 mm telephoto lens at f/5.6. Images Credit: Wayne Barnett.
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 22:44 UT 1.3 seconds |
 22:49 UT 0.62 seconds |
 23:00 UT 2 seconds |
 23:28 UT 1 second |
 00:01 UT 0.5 seconds |
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