January 20-21/2000 Lunar Eclipse from Newfoundland!
Almost impossibly, in the midst of a week of rain and snow driven
by winds gusting to over 120 km/h (!!) - actually causing damage
to property, and power blackouts in St. John's - the clouds cleared for
a few hours late on the evening of January 20/21 2000, offering
a lovely view of the
first total lunar eclipse of 2000. Earlier on the
20th I'd chatted on-air about the eclipse on
CBC Radio One's "Radio Morning", during which we agreed that a miracle would
have to occur before anyone was seeing this one in the province! Indeed, the
clouds started to break at 8pm that night! At 12am I ran outside
our apartment with an 810mm lens (135 f/2.8 with 2X and 3X teleconverters)
on a tripod-mounted 1970's vintage Praktica body loaded with ISO800 Kodak MAX colour print
film, and with a cable release exposed between 1/30th and 1 second for the bright phases,
then between 1 and 6 seconds around totality. Because the tripod was static
(in the lee of our apartment building for
some wind-protection), the shorter exposures tended to be clearer. Enjoy.
This sequence of pictures begins with the moon a bit more than half-way
into the umbra of the earth's shadow (ie., at about 12:10am).
Totality-proper started neatly at 12:35am local time (as predicted). From
St. John's, NF, the moon was very high in the southern sky,
and appeared as a glowing drop of blood-red amber. The last
image was recorded just before 1am, after which I turned in (I had to get up for
work the following morning, afterall!) According to predictions, totality would
last until 1:52am, after which the sequence of images above would essentially
reverse itself mirror-image to the above.
Here's a diagram (courtesy of NASA) illustrating what happened during
this event:
As I write these words (3:25pm on the day after the eclipse), the wind and rain
have returned and the lights are starting to flicker once again...!
(Click here to see how NF was between severe
weather fronts during the eclipse (courtesy Intellicast weather services))
The lesson learned: Never give up hope!
Christopher Stevenson
RASC St. John's Centre
Observing Chair/Nat'l Rep.