Credit: David Abbou
Early this morning, I watched the total eclipse of the Moon from my observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Yesterday (Monday, March 2) was mostly clear with a cerulean blue sky throughout, a high temperature near 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), and just a bit of a breeze, so I had high hopes that I’d see the event. My wife, Holley, also saw some of the eclipse, but her job isn’t as forgiving as mine, so once totality began, she went off to bed.
I also invited a neighbor who was hosting several out of town guests. They arrived around 3:30 a.m. I first showed them the Ring Nebula (before their eyes became used to the brightness of the Moon through my optics), and I answered a bunch of questions in the lead up to totality.
For observing, I had prepared my 6-inch Astro-Tech AT152EDT apochromatic refractor and 4-inch Oberwerk binoculars, which, with the eyepieces I chose, gave a magnification of 40x. I used a variety of eyepieces in the refractor, which has a focal ratio of f/8 and a focal length of 1,216 millimeters. Initially, I screwed a 0.9 neutral density filter into a 24mm eyepiece. Such a filter cuts out 90 percent of the Moon’s light without changing the overall color. Even then, our lone natural satellite appeared bright.
Conditions were perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, a perfect temperature (I was in a t-shirt), and the stars weren’t twinkling, indicating that the atmosphere above me was steady.
The penumbral phase of the eclipse — where the Moon passes through Earth’s lighter, outer shadow — began at 1:43 a.m. CST. I didn’t notice any darkening for the first 20 minutes or so. But few observers are worried about this part. The action begins at the start of the partial eclipse, when Luna begins to dip into our planet’s darker, inner shadow, which is called the umbra. That said, as the partial phase approached, I could see a noticeable darkening on the Moon’s northern edge.
Credit: David Abbou
The partial phase began at 2:49 a.m. CST, and even in the first few minutes I could see Earth’s umbra beginning to cut a dark, curved swath across the face of the Moon. Through the binoculars, it was as if a gray filter was slowly covering the Moon’s surface. Features were visible in that part, but of course they weren’t as easy to see as the ones in the bright area. Also, as the partial phase continued, I noticed more stars becoming visible.
Totality began at 4:03 a.m. CST. And although the trailing edge of the Moon appeared brighter than the side that first entered the umbra, there was a noticeable increase in the number of stars that we could see. What a magical time!
Mid-eclipse, when the Moon is deepest in Earth’s shadow, occurred at 4:33 a.m. CST. This is the point when I assess two factors: 1) the color of the Moon; and 2) how dark the Moon appears. For its color, Luna definitely took on an orange-red appearance, which was most apparent through my refractor. Was it a “blood” Moon? Maybe to some people. And as to its darkness, I judged this eclipse as medium-dark. The Moon certainly didn’t disappear, but its light really diminished a lot. In fact, right around mid-totality, I walked outside my observatory and could easily see the Milky Way rising in the east behind the Rincon Mountains.
Interestingly, when totality began, most of the Moon was within the boundaries of the constellation Sextans the Sextant. At mid-totality, however, Luna had moved enough so that it was entirely within the constellation Leo the Lion. Also, just after the beginning of totality, the Moon’s disc occulted (covered) NGC 3423, an 11th-magnitude spiral galaxy in Sextans. Because of the difference in brightness between the galaxy and even the eclipsed Moon, the event was unobservable.
Credit: Saber Karimi
OK, one final confession. I’m primarily a deep-sky object observer, so I couldn’t help myself from looking at some far away targets during totality. Those included the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), globular cluster M4 in Scorpius, and several others. All during Full Moon! Well, an eclipsed Full Moon.
With the next good total lunar eclipse in the U.S. not until the start of summer 2029, I made it a point to be on hand for this one, and I had a blast. I hope you did, too!
