Lessons from observing a lunar eclipse

[Mike37N113W]

Here are four lessons I learned from getting up early this morning to view the lunar eclipse:

• Sloppy is okay
  
• Sleep is bad
  
• Don't breathe
  
• Back up
  

SLOPPY IS OKAY

I got up at 4:30am MST to set up my telescope. I had it outside covered all night, but now I had to get it aligned and ready. I didn't bother trying to center either of the two alignment stars. That worked out fine. The telescope tracked the moon perfectly, at least for visual observing.

SLEEP IS BAD

I knew I wasn't going to see any of the total eclipse. "Red Mountain Observatory" is a significant exaggeration of the term "observatory." It's just my telescope on wheels that I roll out to view. But Red Mountain is no figment of my imagination. It looms large in the west. As a result, I knew I would not see any of the totality. And I knew it was going to be cold. So I was considering sleeping through it.

That would have been a mistake. I got to experience almost an hour of the eclipse, starting at about 5:49am when the earth's shadow first hit the moon. Red Mountain didn't interfere at all until 6:37am. By 6:40am the moon slipped completely below the mountain. And those last three minutes were stunning. I had not expected to enjoy seeing the mountain interfere with the eclipse, but It was amazing seeing the moon being rapidly swallowed by the rocky cliffs.

DON'T BREATHE

I was worried about dew, but thought it would not be much if any of a problem even though the temperature was 26f and the relative humidity was 47%. Even so, I attached my dew shield and I wished I had ordered a heater months ago (I ordered a DewBuster from Ron Keating a few days ago, but it won't be here for a few weeks). The end result was there was nothing to worry about. The telescope didn't attract moisture. But my eyepiece did. I was spending a lot of time looking through it and either my body heat or breathe was fogging up the eyepiece and then freezing. It was easy to wipe off but it kept happening until I started holding my breathe.

BACK UP

I have not spent much time looking at the moon, and almost no time looking at the full moon. I knew my 40mm eyepiece had a wide enough field of view to take in the whole moon. But it didn't have much more room than that. It would have been nice to frame the moon with a little more sky around it. If I could just back up five feet. Oh wait, that only works when I take family photos. So I need to look into either an eyepiece with a wider true field of view or a focal reducer.

[nikocel8]

ahh! something just clicked for me! i havent been taking my scope out in the winter due to the -20F to -30F temps here. have seen several mentions of a dew shield etc but it has never once crossed my mind to look for a heater! tells you how new to this I really am! orion is coming up at a decent hour now so will have to look into something for my SE8. thanks so much for your inadvertant help!

[Mike37N113W]

ahh! something just clicked for me! i havent been taking my scope out in the winter due to the -20F to -30F temps here. have seen several mentions of a dew shield etc but it has never once crossed my mind to look for a heater! tells you how new to this I really am! orion is coming up at a decent hour now so will have to look into something for my SE8. thanks so much for your inadvertant help!

Hi. Actually, I don't think I needed the dew shield today. But I do need it often in the winter. It doesn't get as cold here as where you are. The lowest is +13f and that's rare - 20-25 is norm for a month or 2. Here's a good article on dew and when it strikes: http://home.comcast.net/~astrophoto/Articles/Dew.htm