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Special Projects
- Partial solar and
total lunar eclipse in 2015
In 2015
a partial solar eclipse on the morning of September 13 and a total lunar
eclipse on September 28 could be observed in Namibia.
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The
partial solar eclipse on September 13 should begin at sunrise. Unfortunately,
like on many days in July, August and September 2015, the morning starts very
hazy at Onjala Lodge. In practice the Sun was not visible at this time and the
entire eclipse could not be documented. Nevertheless some beautiful images
could be taken.
A Canon PowerShot SX 60 digital camera with a huge
optical zoom range from 21 to 1200 mm (full frame equivalent) was used.
Unfortunately, the height axis of the photo tripod was not clamped at the
beginning. This results in a broken glass solar filter and the images were
taken through Baader Astro Solar film.
All images
can be enlarged by clicking.
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| Broken ! |
Canon PowerShot SX 60
with
Baader film |
Short after sunrise. |
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The
total lunar eclipse on the morning of September 28,
2015
This eclipse was
announced as a super blood lunar
eclipse in the Namibian press. Blood because of the expected reddish color of
the eclipsed Moon and super due to the very low distance to Earth of just
352,000 km.
The day before the eclipse did not look good. In the evening
there were the first raindrops of the starting Namibian rainy season and even
at midnight there was a nearly complete cloud cover. At noon it was almost
unbearably hot. About 1 o'clock in the morning the clouds began to disappear,
and a short time before the beginning of the partial phase of the sky cleared
up.
« Image © 2015 by
Peter Pack: Short before the end of the eclipse. The Moon is just above the
horizon next to a mighty camel thorn tree - all pictures
can be enlarged by clicking on it. |
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| Midday temperature |
First drops of rain |
Moonrise |
Moonrise |
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| Around midnight
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Full moon against
midnight |
At 1
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The
following images of the lunar eclipse were taken in the focus of the Zeiss APQ
refractor of Onjala Observatory. A Canon EOS 60Da (200 ASA) was used. The
observing time at the telescope was shared with Peter Pack and two German
trainees of the Lodge who arrived the day before.
The entry of the Moon
in the Earth's shadow was impressive. The milky way appeared more and more and
during the totality it shows in all ist splendour. It was quite comparable to a
total solar eclipse at the moment of the onset of totality.
« Full moon, taken about 30
minutes before the beginning of the partial phase. All
images can be enlarged by clicking on it. |
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| All Images and all Content are © by Franz Hofmann
+ Wolfgang Paech |
