LUNAR MARATHON - DEC 26TH TO JAN 24TH

paulastro · January 22, 2020

On Dec 28 I had a nice view and took some photos of a thin crescent Moon. As it happened I managed to continue this every day until Jan 2nd. I then decided I may as well try and get in as many days photographing the lunar phase and observing the Moon during the current lunation. That is starting from the date of the last new Moon (Dec 26th) until the next one on January 24th. It became rather addictive and to extend the sequence of days my behaviour became rather extreme at times - and strange to my non-astronomical neighbours. Frequently out in cloudy skies just waiting for a break, and walking up the road with my setup if I couldn't see the Moon from my backyard. On a couple of occasions I was actually out taking pics when rain was falling. One of these was whilst trying to hold an umbrella over myself and the telescope/camera as the rain became more persistent. Well, how did I get on?

Dec 26th. New Moon.

Dec 28th to January 8th. A sequence of 12 days in a row.

Jan 9th cloudy, not looking good for the penumbral eclipse on Jan 10th.

Jan 10th Managed to see about the first 40 mts of the penumbral eclipse in difficult conditions.

Jan 11th to 12th, clouded out both days.

Jan 13th to Jan 22. A sequence of 10 days in a row.

Jan 23rd. The Moon will be too close to the Sun for me to catch it apart from in daylight hours.

Jan 24th New Moon.

So, in summary I photographed the Moon and observed it on a total of 23 days during the period. I'm very pleased with this, especially considering that on the day of new moon and the day after/before it's not practical to observe. From the start I decided I wasn't going to observe during the daytime.

I really had a great time and enjoyed it tremendously, though toward the end when I was getting up in the early hours it was hard going. The only reason I had the time to spend on my Moon Marathon was because I am recovering from an op and didn't have to go to work, every cloud has a silver lining!

For all sessions I used either my SW 80ED on an AZ5 or my SW 120ED on an Ercole mount. All pics are single frames taken with an Olympus E-M5 Mk11.

Below are a some of the numerous pics I took. There are included because I like them for various reason, rather than any particular merit they might otherwise have.