Astronomy pictures thread

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No, I was using the change of hue at sunset to illustrate the similar effect of the hue on the moon. Light waves and the effect they produce when partially obscured...but I'm far from an astronomy expert

What is it Called a Blood Moon?​

The Moon turns a reddish hue when it’s completely submerged in the Earth’s shadow. Call us picky, but we wouldn’t ever describe the color as “bloody.” The fully-eclipsed Moon actually becomes orange or coppery like a penny.

While most of the sunlight is indeed blocked, some rays bent around the edge of Earth and reach the Moon’s surface. Earth’s atmosphere scatters the blue/green colors (short wavelengths), but the orange/red colors (long wavelengths) reach our eyes. It’s similar to a sunset.


What a Blood Moon Is—and Isn't

The next Blood Moon is March 14, 2025! There’s boatloads of celestial hype about this phenomenon. We'll help you separate fact from fiction.
www.almanac.com
 
Newmisty said:
No, I was using the change of hue at sunset to illustrate the similar effect of the hue on the moon. Light waves and the effect they produce when partially obscured...but I'm far from an astronomy expert
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Me too.


Newmisty said:
The fully-eclipsed Moon actually becomes orange or coppery like a penny.
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That describes pretty well how it looked to me, but prior to it entering the shadow.
 
Could there have been an elevated level of particulates in the sky? Even small amounts of smoke and dust can significantly affect the color of anything viewed through the atmosphere particularly at lower elevations.

Here is a film pic I took of a non-eclipsed moon rising in 2003 near the horizon.
 
Made a progression composite

 
EricTheCat said:
Could there have been an elevated level of particulates in the sky?
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May have been. The Sunset itself was rather nice that evening.

EricTheCat said:
Even small amounts of smoke and dust can significantly affect the color of anything viewed through the atmosphere particularly at lower elevations.

Here is a film pic I took of a non-eclipsed moon rising in 2003 near the horizon.
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Yep, that looks a lot like what I saw. Thanks!
 

Just fooling around with a (stock) ASI224MC camera on the ground outside the house connected to a laptop. A 35 second exposure, with Marsd (on right) Merope (7 sisters) and jupiter in a line at the top. Captured with free Sharpcap software.

This same (all sky camera setup) was used to produce the following 5 second time-lapse video -
 
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Very cool. Think you'll get some meteors with that?

I've gotten in to a habit of setting my camera up around midnight to try for meteors, even if it's not near a shower peak. My goal is to catch a big bolide. Been getting 8 to 10 meteors a night but nothing spectacular so far.
 
I saw a bolide while at a drive-in movie. It was bright enough that it temporarily blanked out the movie. It was orange, and green, and it looked as if it was rotating. No sound.
 
Unca Walt said:
I saw a bolide while at a drive-in movie. It was bright enough that it temporarily blanked out the movie. It was orange, and green, and it looked as if it was rotating. No sound.
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Best one I saw was the morning of 9/8/2009. I was taking the garbage out at around 4am when suddenly a bright flash lit up everything around me. I assumed it was lightning and looked around looking for where the storm was when I noticed the end of a super bright orange meteor heading South. I reported the event to the American meteor society and 2 people in Iowa also reported the same meteor.
 
Unca Walt said:
I saw a bolide while at a drive-in movie. It was bright enough that it temporarily blanked out the movie. It was orange, and green, and it looked as if it was rotating. No sound.
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I saw one once, too. Or at least, that's what I think it was. It was in Winter (December, if IRCC) during a known meteor shower time, as we had driven several miles out of town in order to watch for them without city lights being so bright.
We were parked along a dirt road, just standing there looking to the sky when it passed over. It was big. Looked like a big ball of yellow-orangish fire. Went all the way across the sky from the North, traveling beyond the horizon to the South. I did not see it explode. It also did not really seem to be moving very fast, at least not when compared to the fast, tiny streaks of light people call shooting stars.

I know that they say those things are too high to hear, but I'd swear that this one made a faint sizzling sound.
 
Mid 60s I had a morning paper route. I had a up front and close view of a major part of the Leonid Meteor Shower that early morning before sun up.
If I saw ONE I saw 20. Shooting stars and bolides so big passing over head I though I'd hear explosions as a couple went by.
All travelling from East to West. Never heard anything. Just saw a beautiful light show. While thinking we were being invaded by space aliens.
Mom didn't believe me when I got home until the 6pm NEWS came on and the News Reporters were talking about all the calls local police got, and then the weatherman talked about it again during his segment. About Halley's Comet, How they got named Leonids, and being one of the best showers recorded over Dayton, Ohio.
I came so close to running home and not finish my route but I did.
And I had a great Show and Tell for school that morning.
 
Cool to hear all the stories.

Might have been during the Geminid meteor shower, mid December. I've seen some nice ones.

By luck I happened to have the shutter open on my camera for the best Geminid I have seen. I was laying on a makeshift bed on my walkway while the camera was rolling using an interval timer. 12/14/2017.









I did catch one bolide on video years ago by putting out a spare security camera looking at the sky and later checking for meteors. Just made a GIF of it.
 

The best meteor shower of my life was the Leonid meteor shower in 2001. I was in my young 20s renting a duplex. Friends came over and we walked to a nature park and walked along the river and train tracks watching the sky. Every few seconds there would be another meteor often seeing multiple bright meteors at a time. Every so often the Leonid shower is very active.
 
Sweet gif!
 
Cool event alert. There is a lunar occultation of Mars Wednesday night 12/7/2022. For anyone just outside of the area, the Moon and Mars will still be very close to one another and should be an interesting observation. Inside the area, the moon will pass in front of Mars. It should happen at about 9 PM central here and end at a little after 10 PM.

Map from
https://in-the-sky.org/news.php?id=20221208_16_100
 
Unca Walt said:
Fargin moon was so bright, I kinda hadda squint at it. Could not see Mars.
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It probably looked the coolest naked eye when Mars was more than about half a degree from the moon and still stood out. I could see it when it was very close but I had to squint to make it out and the color contrast was not nearly as good as when they were further apart.

I dusted off my 10" reflector for this. I haven't had it out since 2019. I avoid using it because it is very large, almost too heavy for my mount. I'm not a fan of the screw-on type camera adapter that is required to achieve focus with it. In reality it really wasn't that bad. It is otherwise a very nice scope.
 
Ok you celestial voyagers....

Never Seen This Before | UFO? Galactic Clump?​

 
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