Deirdre Kelleghan  skysketcher@gmail.com
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Total Lunar Eclipse revisited - Eclipse Poem - Saturn and Cassini on Ice - What's Up for January 2011 - Partial Solar Eclipse January 4th

12/30/2010

 
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Here is a photo of me sketching the full moon in the early hours (00:20) of December 21st 2010. It was minus 7 in Bray Co Wicklow. My feet were on six inches of snow.  I felt lucky to get a gap in the weather.

The  silence  of the snow was broken only by the occasional squealing of car tyres trying to get up the icy hill in the town.





At 07:55 I observed the almost eclipsed moon directly over Kathy Gallaghers Hill from outside St Cronans School in Bray. Before long  the whole view was swallowed by snow. 
I was inspired to write a small poem

Solstice Total Lunar Eclipse
In the silence of the solstice snow
Earth's shadow
Drags its dust stained gauze over the moon
Deep red tan across Tycho
Sinking totality lost in the dawn



You will have to wait a while to see what I sketched  that night / morning as it is for a special project . However as they say in cooking , here is one I made earlier ( 2007)  so you can get an idea what a Total Lunar Eclipse looks like in a telescope.

Picture
Total Lunar Eclipse March 2007
sketched from Bray Co Wicklow
3/3/07
200mm/25mm/2XBarlow/97X
Lunation 14.23 Days
Illumination 100%
Soft Pastels, 300gm paper, pencils.
Seeing 1
Danjon Scale L  4

Rotated 180 degrees

I was delayed setting up for XYand Z reasons. In an ideal world I would have had the entire lunar disc sketched in with detail before the earthly shadow entered this drama.
The delay, actioned my sketching in defence of the advancing darkness .

When I began to sketch at 21:40UT the ominous dark shadow was descending on the Tycho area.

I decided quickly to sketch from the bottom up (south is up for me)
I realised that my usual method with a wooden toothpick was going to be too slow for this sketch and decided on pencil over pastel for speed.

Firstly I detailed the Maria  as much as I could giving  prominent bright craters like Proculus, Plinius and Kepler some white attention.  I suspected they might be still visible under the shadowy blanket, despite what ever colour developed
I put a lot of detail into Plato as it was outstanding in shape and contrast.

21:50UT the shadow was heading to gobble up my Copernicus before I could sketch it.
22:24UT Proculus was in grave danger of being swallowed whole.

B
y 22:34UT a fabulous blue leading wave developed and swept up the curve of the moon to merge with the increasing raspberry tones developing toward the south.

At 22:34UT when the colour began to appear, I had to run inside for red pastels
Earlier that day I was thinking how would I do this colour overlay? I laid down some grey and tried out brushing it over with some red tones but this was not so good.

Fingers were the only thing for it and I worked quickly in red tones until I saw to both my delight and surprise a blue wave appearing across the entire width of the lunar disc.
Fingers red, big wipe, fingers blue.

In my haste and excitement of blueing the moon I wiped out Plato as my blue fingers joined the shadow and began moving north with it, oh god !! stop or there will be no moon left. I observed that the blue edges wrapped the moon in a curve to both sides, like a gas flame burning up my surface detail.

Meanwhile a yellow orange glow developed at the South East limb, big wipe, yellow fingers. Ended up with just Goldschmidt, Barrow, and I think Philolaus left at the Northern end of the moon, just about untouched at that moment. A criss cross ray ejecta feature was visible also.
The star 59 Leonis was also sketched in off the SE limb




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Christmas Ice Drawing

Just for fun and while we still had snow I did a drawing of Saturn and Cassini in the ice in my back garden You can follow the adventures of Cassini here

What's Up  for January 2011 from Jane Houston Jones

Learn some more interesting facts about The Quadrantids  click here



Picture
Partial Solar Eclipse

The partial solar eclipse will be  already  in progress as the sun rises on January 4th 2011 at 08:42 and ends at 09:26 .
The solar disc will be obscured by 38% as the moon slides across it during this time. So in order to get a clear view ( weather permitting ) we need a practical viewing vantage point.
The South Beach in Greystones seems a good place to view from so weather permitting I will be at the South Beach  from about 08 :20   with some eclipse glasses.

NOBODY SHOULD EVER EVER EVER LOOK AT THE SUN WITHOUT SPECIAL EQUIPMENT EVER.




These observations are from August 1st 2008 when the solar disc was 20% obscured by the lunar disc, viewed from my garden in Bray Co Wicklow.

Massive dark filament on the sun - What's Up for December 2010 from Jane Houston Jones - Total Lunar Eclipse

12/6/2010

 
Dark  Magnetic Filament December 6th - an experimental sketch
Picture
Active Dark Filament on the Sun's SE limb as viewed from Bray Co Wicklow December 6th

PST 40 8mm eyepiece Pastels and charcoal on black card.
An experimental sketch to capture detail on the solar disc.
10:45 UT December 6th 2010 -  I was thrilled to see such a huge well structured filament on the sun. It arced upward from the solar surface and whipped over the south limb with powerful visual action. The filament seemed to be anchored to the sun by many many fine lines which appeared dark against the solar disc in h alpha . These fine power packed solar lines continued within the arc over the limb looking like a solar waterfall  against the blackness of space. This filaprom was over 700,000 km long , that is enormous.

You can follow the sun,  this filament and its adventures  here

on the  Solar Dynamics Laboratory website or on Spaceweather.com
What's Up for December 2010 from Jane Houston Jones - includeds some details on the coming  Total Lunar Eclipse which is visible from Ireland early morning December 21st.  Get your warmest jacket on, best do gloves and hat as well,  and head to somewhere you can clearly see the moon low in the North West sky. You do not need a telescope , you can see it with your eyes or with binoculars.
Eclipse begins at 06:32 , mid  eclipse is at 08:17 , the moon sets at 08:55. This will be a difficult observation as the moon will be very low to the horizon but as there will not be another one till 2015 it might be worth a look.  Listen to Jane's What's Up for December for a good explaination of  a lunar eclipse.



    Picture

    Author


    Deirdre Kelleghan is amateur astronomer,
    an artist and also  likes to write.

    "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted"
    Plutarch

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