Super Moon, Blue Moon, Blood Moon, Are You Ready!

What is the Blue Moon?

Blue moon does not mean the moon becomes blue. A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: either the third of fourth full moon in a season, or the second full moon in a calendar month.

 

What is the Super Moon?

When the full moon appears  at the  perigee of moon orbit, the moon looks much bigger and brighter than  apogee.

What is the Blood Moon?

A total lunar eclipse has the direct sunlight completely blocked by the earth’s shadow. The only light seen is refracted through the earth’s shadow. This light looks red for the same reason that the sunset looks red, due to rayleigh scattering of the more blue light. Because of its reddish color, a total lunar eclipse is sometimes called a blood moon.

This photo is taken by Sean Wang on Oct.8th, 2014.  We are going to take much better images than this one. ;-P

 

 

Where can I see it?

This time, the best observation area is in east Asia, Australia and west of North America.

Pacific Standard Time of Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly behind the Earth into its umbra (shadow). This can occur only when the sun, Earth, and moon are aligned (in “syzygy”) exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, a lunar eclipse can occur only the night of a full moon. The type and length of an eclipse depend upon the Moon’s location relative to its orbital nodes.

Unlike a solar eclipse, which can be viewed only from a certain relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of the Earth. A lunar eclipse lasts for a few hours, whereas a total solar eclipse lasts for only a few minutes at any given place, due to the smaller size of the Moon’s shadow. Also unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are safe to view without any eye protection or special precautions, as they are dimmer than the full moon.

 

 

What cameras are we going to use?

ASI094MC Pro

 

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/products/asi-cooled-cameras/asi094mc-pro-color/

Telescope A:

C11HD and 0.7 reducer + ASI094MC Pro Camera, we are going to use this setup to record the great precious moments of lunar eclipse. And the most important thing is that we are going to live the exciting moments of lunar eclipse the whole time in China!

FOV Simulation:

 

ASI294MC Pro

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/products/asi-cooled-cameras/asi294mc-pro-color/

Telescope B:

ES127CF APO and 1.6x balow + ASI294MC Pro camera. This setup is for photography.

first contact-second contact：5ms-30ms exposure，gain=0，full resolution，300 frames for each video ，interval is 5 minutes.

total eclipse phase：30ms-200ms exposure，gain=300，full resolution， 300 frames for each video ，interval is 5 minutes.

third contact-fourth contact：5ms-30ms exposure，gain=0，full resolution，300 frames for each video ，interval is 5 minutes.

Processing software will be： Autostakkert!3   Astraimage 5    Photoshop CS6

FOV Simulation:

What camera is suitable for Lunar eclipse?

Option 1: A Color Camera

Yes, the moon has color, lunar eclipse is colorful too.  Color camera can record the very beauty of the moon vividly, and it looks so real.

We have many color cameras which can be used for Lunar eclipse, such as ASI094MC Pro, ASI128MC Pro, ASI071MC Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI183MC Pro, ASI1600MC Pro, and also non-cooled version of those cameras.

Option 2: One Mono camera for Detail and one color camera for RGB color.

Guess what! This is an amazing combination. As we know mono cameras have much better details than color ones. So if we take L channel by mono camera, and RGB channel by a color camera at same time, then combine L+RGB, you will get a wonderful image ;-D

Let’s pray for good weather.

Clear skies!