2003 Total Lunar Eclipse

ALCOVE Database ®

Total Lunar Eclipse of November 8, 2003

A total of 25 individual frames make up this sequence (from right to left) of the total lunar eclipse.

Welcome to our report on the Total Lunar Eclipse of November 8, 2003. After missing several interesting astronomical events earlier this year (all in May, the transit of Mercury and another TLE - due to inclement weather and the Annular Solar Eclipse - because of my professional duties), we were looking forward to observing this event. When we read the favorable weather forecast for that Saturday, we were ready to go!

We observed the eclipse from the Boston Museum of Science, together with around two dozen of amateur astronomers (mostly members of the ATMoB) and almost a thousand individuals from the general public visiting the museum especially for the lunar eclipse. We set up our Apogee 25x100 binoculars for public viewing and MaryAnn, our Celestron NexStar 8" Go To SCT to take pictures. We also had our Sony Handycam 8 digital video camera on which we captured both the people and the totality phase of the eclipse.

We arrived the rooftop parking lot of the museum at 6:00 PM, after the Moon entered the penumbra at 5:15 PM. After setting up our instruments and socializing with our astronomer buddies, I started taking pictures through our SCT at 7:05 PM. You can see these pictures all around this page. Not only it was really cold (it was 30^oF = -1^oC when we left the museum at 10:00 PM), but high winds shook the telescope's tripod which caused some of the images become blurry.

Overall, it was an exciting event that we shared with so many people under the crisp, clear and cold (3C) skies of New England. This was quite a bright eclipse, even at the middle of the totality, all the lunar features were easily visible to the unaided eye. We estimated the brightness of the eclipse between 3 and 4 (closer to 3) on the Danjon scale. Since the Moon passed just inside of the Earth's umbra (tangent to its southern limit), the Moon's southern limb appeared to be always bright, with grayish-yellowish hues. We glimpsed the orangish (copper) coloring first at 7:15 PM, toward the north-western and south-western limb. Totality lasted only 25 minutes, from 8:06 to 8:31 PM.

In addition to eclipse viewing, we also enjoyed the drumming and dances performed by the members of the Metrowest Community Drum Circle. They helped strengthen the Moon through a celestial cadence of drums, and scared bad spirits away to bring back the eclipsed Moon! this successful eclipse viewing, now we are ready for the transit of Venus next June (the total solar eclipse in Antarctica is out of scope for us).
(and we succeeded to observe the transit!)

I took this shot right before I attached my camera to our SCT, when the eclipse was still in progress, from the rooftop of Boston Museum of Science parking lot. The eclipsed Moon shines in the middle of a crisp, clear and cold New England evening. The new Zakim Bridge over the Charles river and one of the observatory domes of Boston Museum of Science are in the background. The reflection of the Moon and the bridge in the foreground are from the roof of our car. Ignore the internal reflections in the camera which are seen above and below of the Moon.

All of the eclipse pictures below are taken at the prime focus of our Celestron NexStar 8" SCT with a Nikon FG
on Kodak Gold 400 ASA print film.

All times are in Eastern Standard and exposures are in seconds in the tables below. The sequence is from right to left, in accordance with the direction the Moon moved through Earth's penumbra and umbra. North is to the right, about at 2 o'clock position.

19:34, 4 sec

19:32, 1 sec

19:29, 3 sec

19:27, 1 sec

19:24, 2 sec

19:15, 1 sec

19:10, 2 sec

19:05, 1 sec

20:23, 6 sec

20:16, 6 sec

20:13, 7 sec

20:00, 4 sec

19:57, 5 sec

19:52, 2 sec

19:47, 2 sec

19:40, 2 sec

21:29, 4 sec

21:18, 3 sec

21:10, 4 sec

21:03, 10 sec

20:58, 4 sec

20:46, 4 sec

20:42, 8 sec

20:31, 8 sec

20:26, 4 sec

Three individual frames from the TLE. From right to left: at 19:29, at 20:16 (mid-totality) and at 21:29.

LINKS ABOUT THIS ECLIPSE

November's Lunar Eclipse, from Sky and Telescope
A Beautiful Lunar Eclipse, from Sky and Telescope
Pictures by Gerard Foley, Columbus OH
Pictures by Joel Moskowitz, Long Island NY
Pictures by Dale Ireland, Silverdale WA
Pictures by Fred Bruenjes, San Diego CA
Pictures by Jim Low, Toronto, Canada
Pictures by Andrew J. White, UK
Pictures by Geert Vandenbulcke, Belgium
Pictures by Christian Viladrich, France
Pictures by Marc Weihrauch , Germany

To read accounts and see pictures of other solar and lunar eclipses we observed, please also visit our Eclipses page.
Copyright of all pictures on this page are by Haldun I. and Gamze H. Menali.

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