Total lunar eclipse 2003/11/8

I observed the eclipse from home at Green Tree. At one time there was a bright moondog to the left of the moon. Then there was an airplane flying right over the eclipsed moon! During totality when I was not taking photos, my wife Jing witnessed the disappearance of SAO 93210 (mag 8) behind the red moon. She was very happy.

The following close-up photos are taken with an 8"/f6 Dob, 18mm eyepiece/adapter, Nikon coolpix 995 camera (F2.6, f8.2mm, white balance preset on the full moon). From Pittsburgh, PA.

19:38 EST. Partial midway. 1/2 second, ISO 400.

19:52 EST. Close to totality. 1/4 second, ISO 800.

20:02 EST. Almost total. 1/4 second, ISO 400.

20:31 EST. Just out of total. 1/2 second, ISO 400.

20:35 EST. A different look. 1/8 second, ISO 200.

As you can see, the moon was never quite dark -- the 'silver lining' was always there during totality.

19:14 EST. A moondog to the left of the eclipsed moon. 8 seconds, ISO 400.

A fleeting moondog appeared during the partial eclipse. It lasted less than a minute. I took the above photo in a hurry (had to take the camera away from the telescope, unscrew the eyepiece from the camera, set exposure time to 8 seconds, and put the camera on car hood -- no time for tripod.) Although you cannot tell from photo, the moon on the right was being eclipsed halfway.

19:32 EST. An airplane passed in front of the eclipsed moon. 1/8 second, ISO 800.

No time to adjust anything -- should have used a shorter exposure time. Well at least the light and contrail is visible.

The photos are resized to 640x480, and processed with neatimage to reduce noise.