We got a great view of the lunar eclipse in Calgary tonight.
The timing couldn't have been better: Steven just finished a poster presentation project for school on this very subject.
I caught this picture with my little old point and shoot camera! I was so surprised and happy with how well this picture turned out when I uploaded it to my computer. Too bad my total eclipse photo didn't work out - the blood moon was beautiful. Orange. It looked like I could have reached up and plucked it out of the sky.
We went to the UofC RAO (observatory) to watch the eclipse. It was interesting to see the big telescope (we didn't stay late enough to look in the telescope, Chloe was tired and losing it). Jaclyn talked to the astronomer operating the telescope and learned that it has a special lens that will divide the light spectrum of a star, which gives information about the nature of the star. I'm sure Jaclyn will comment if I didn't get that quite right.
The little telescope (Chloe climbing up to take a look) was originally meant to watch out for spy satellites. It is one of ten telescopes built as a direct result of the launching of
Sputnik. Armed forces now use radar to track satellites, so when the original telescopes were
decommissioned the
Uof C picked one up at the thrift store. Or something like that.
=
Chloe opted to watch much of the eclipse from indoors through the window while her more interested siblings watched the eclipse outside.
In retrospect, we could have watched from home. The light pollution of the city would have dulled the brightness of the orange moon, but not completely. The advantage of going to the observatory was that we made a family event out of it and spent the evening together.
An evening of me calling the kids every 15 minutes, from the far corners of the house, to come look at the moon now would have been less fun. Plus I finally got to see the observatory up close.
!
19 comments:
Here I am a few hours later up with Chloe who has a fever. That explains her grumpiness at the RAO.
Aw man, I didn't even ATTEMPT to take pictures of the eclipse because I was convinced they wouldn't work out. I should have at least tried! How cool that you went to watch at an observatory! I'd love to go to one someday. I'm sorry little Chloe is sick. That's the worst!
I'm in with Anne, I didn't even TRY to take a picture, though I really wanted one.
Your picture is perfect! And what a great idea to do it at an observatory. Cali and I timed our walk to be when it would start and it was fun watching the process after we came home. Every fifteen minutes or so we'd all go out and check it. Ande was watching it at college and it was cool for all of us--miles and miles apart, wherever we were--to be able to watch the same thing.
What a great family activity.
How's Chloe this morning?
Cool photos! That does sound like a great family activity. We missed the whole thing!
In the past when I've seen a blood moon, it freaks me out a little bit -- it looks so apocalyptic or something...
We watched from home, checking every few minutes. Right after i sent the little girls to bed i read on CNN's website that if you had a telescope you would be able to see the rings of saturn too. So i pulled the kids out of bed and ran over to mom and dad's to use their telescope off the balcony. It took us a bit, but we did it. It was cool to see Saturn - looking somewhat like an alien saucer, and the 3 dimensional craters on the moon. You'll have to take the kids over to check it out (i'm not sure if you can still see saturn, but it seems like you should be able to based on my limited knowledge of stars), unless the moon is too bright??
We had clouds here! Freaky, considering we usually have to hunt for any kind of cloud form. We saw just the beginning of the blood moon before it was covered. Love your picks and I love any time at an observatory.
I always feel bad about my annoyance towards my kids' "inappropriate behavior" when I find out there was good reason for it. Makes me feel like such a heel.
Christy,
They were talking about looking at Saturn through the telescopes, Chloe just couldn't handle staying that long. That is so cool that you got your girls out of bed to go over to Grandma and Grandpa's too look at the rings of Saturn. You are a fun mom!
They had this device called a spectrograph. They could attatch it to the telescope, and it would focus the light from the star into a prism and divide it into the spectrum. The spectrum would have black lines across it at specific points, which indicated how much hydrogen, nitrogen, etc., was in the star.
The eclipse happened here right at moonrise when it was still light out SO there wasn't much for us to see.
That is a great shot.
Great photo! I love that you made an event out of it!
Wonderful! We had some clouds here, but didn't remember about it until too late (so I don't know if we could see it or not).
I always love remembering the two times I've been to observatories. They are amazing places.
I had bookclub last night and we took a break mid-way to go out and look at the moon. It was very cool.
It was just starting as I was on my way out for the night, and I took Carter and Aimee into the backyard to see it starting. They thought it was neat, but weren't as excited as Dirk and I.
I hope Chloe feels better soon!
It seems the flu is making a late round again. Hope Chloe feels better soon!
What a fun family outing. My boys probably would have loved it. But who am I kidding I would be doing a heck of a lot more chasing that it would be worth. Kuddos on the awesome photo!
What a great photo! I love it. I saw the moon at 7:30pm and then at 9:30pm and it looked just the same. It was neat. I was also out at 7:50 but couldn't wait for the full eclipse as I had a presidency waiting for me and they weren't near as excited. The cubs had their Baden Powell night so they all went crazy after waiting for it.
Oh, Mille had a 3 day fever the week after her B-day party. Mark got it the next week for a FULL week. I have not been touched yet...
I love that you took a photo and it turned out. I didn't even attempt it - darn it! It was cool! I am constantly in awe of our amazing world and the things that go on and around it! So fun that you made it an evening! I hope Chloe feels better soon and doesn't share her illness with the fam...
That sounds like a very cool family field trip!
Wow, I'm impressed that you were able to get such a great moon picture from your camera. It's such a hard thing to do usually.
This is a cool family outing and one I'm sure your kids will remember forever.
We were at book club. Someone mentioned the eclipse about an hour after it happened. Too bad :( it would have been cool. Love your photo.
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