Jan 21/00
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A REPORT OF THE WONDERFUL LUNAR ECLIPSE OF JANUARY 20-21, 2000 By Leo EnrightMany skywatchers in the area looked forward with anticipation to the night of January 20-21 when the Full Moon of that night would enter into the earth's umbra, or dark central shadow, giving us a chance to view the fairly rare celestial phenomenon known as a total lunar eclipse. It had been about nine years since we had had very good weather for such an event. Would the weather cooperate for about four or five hours in mid-January or would Murphy's Law prevail?
On checking the skies at about 9:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, I saw that the prospects appeared very good. The moon was riding high in the southern sky. It was well within the constellation Cancer with the two very bright stars, Castor and Pollux, the Heavenly Twins of the constellation Gemini, easily apparent to the right of the moon with the three objects on a perfectly straight line. Only a very large circle around the bright moon gave an indication that there were some ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, crystals which tended to make the face of the moon look very slightly hazy, but even if this condition persisted, it should not be a serious interference with the viewing of the spectacle.
As the clock ticked away between 9:30 and 10:02 p.m., the left side of the moon's disk grew noticeably darker. I was surprised at its being darker than I had expected, and started to anticipate a very dark eclipse, such as one I had seen about ten years ago. (However, events proved that such was not to be the case.)
At 10:02 p.m., after being in the fainter, more nebulous outer penumbra for an hour, the left-hand side of the moon touched the dark umbra and we would soon know if it was to be a very dark, or very reddish of orangey-yellow eclipse. Anticipation grew over the next hour as the moon marched completely into the huge umbral cone that stretched out from the earth. The darkness of my surroundings increased remarkably. The ring around the moon disappeared as the haze in atmosphere above me became crystal-clear. The sky-transparency was becoming superb, better than I had expected. Only the bitter cold did not relent; that stayed at about -20 C. At the time of second contact with the umbra (when the moon was totally within the dark shadow, and "totality" began) the left side of the moon appeared very dark, but at that time and throughout totality there remained a marked contrast over the range of moon's face both in the colours themselves and in the darkness of the disk. The upper part of the disk was a deep orangey rust, ranging to a slightly darker, more greyish rusty colour near the middle of the disk to a brighter, light-yellowish colour at the southern part of the disk, or rather at the side farthest from the centre of the shadow as the moon moved through the umbra. The overall darkness was not as great as I had at first expected, mainly because of the relative brightness of the outer edge of the outer edge of the umbra. I tried to photograph the spectacle using a 20-cm. telescope and 35mm camera - at various stages of the event. My wife enjoyed observing the event -- for over a half-hour during the hour and eighteen minutes of the total phase -- before the cold weather drove her inside.
At 12:22 a.m., the brightness at the lower left part of the moon increased dramatically, as it started to move out of the umbra. It would be another hour and four minutes before it was completely out of the deep shadow, and another half-hour still before the last remnant of the penumbra was visible, but for now my concentration was on packing up my equipment, enjoying the slowly brightening sky as more and more moonlight lit up my surroundings, and basking in a feeling of satisfaction at enjoying such a celestial spectacle. My drawing of the moon at mid-eclipse would show five different colours from a rusty orange to a dark orange, to a greyish hue, to a light yellow, to a yellow-white at the bottom. Beside, at mid eclipse the two bright planets, Saturn and Jupiter, were beacons of light in the west, the winter constellations were spectacles to behold, and I had seen several meteors streaking across the heavens.
It had been a night to remember. Seeing the clockwork of the heavens had been well worth the effort; observing the range of colours and brightness of the most notable object of the night sky had been something to remember for a long time.
