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Lunar eclipse from Alaska


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Hi. My star gazer daughter Meryl and I, with her friend Sherena, braved 30 below weather to view tonight's lunar eclipse. We took our Skyliner 8" dobson ourside for the first time. Heavy and combersome to pack down three flights of stairs but we got it down. Collimation was next. Waiting to cool down time didn't take long it seemed.

Here is a picture. I placed my smart phone over the eye piece.

We enjoyed the viewing, as did bystanders, including my younger brother and his wife. Everyone was impressed with the Skyliner. We had a velry cold but wonderful time.

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Ive always found most Lunar eclipses very uninspiring and a bit "Meh!!!!!". Maybe ive just never seen a really good one (apart from that one many many yrs ago). Your pics are brilliant. Great to see Meryl was having fun. You on the other hand look like you want to be anywhere but there.

LOL.

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Well, we gave it about 15-20 minutes and laser collimated as we waited. Views were very good after this. People walked by and saw us. We invited them to take a peek. They all were impressed. Some guy drove ny and pulled over to take a look, too.

One of the bystanders had a few pints, and seemed a bit merry. He said I was hard core. It was a compliment I think. We all enjoyed the viewing. I was shivering by the.time we got done. Roughly two hours outside.

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We can get to -70 F at times during the winter, not including the wind chill factor. Summers get to 70's most of the time, with 80F+ a lucky day.

We're expecting the fall season to be our best time for gazing. It will be dark, but warm. We even got a few spots in town to view from. No light polution there. Winter viewing is indeed cold. Worth it though, so I am not going to complain.

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-70F is equal to -56C.

I'm a red headed pale skinned north western European Irish man and i do like it best when temps are about 4-10C.

-56C?..................i'd hibernate. 

On the flip side, ive been in countries (Turkey and Tunisia) during the summer where the temp was 40C. My skin felt it was cooking.

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I just remembered this... one of the bystanders that came around (we live in the ame apartment building) says his dad is into star gazing, and has a telescope. He also recieves an astronomy magazine through the mail, he said. I know the guy, so I'll be speaking to him very soon.

Who knows, maybe the Arctic Circle Astromony Club will have it's first members.

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