WHAT AN ECLIPSE!!
---------------
John Pazmino
NYSkies Astronomy Inc
www.nyskies.org
nyskies@nyskies.org
1994 January 1
It sure looked like a total washout that Sunday [28 November
1993]. All day a winter storm blanketed the City causing coastal
flooding, wind damage, and power outages. The clouds hung low pouring
out winddriven rain. Boats moved into havens, but a barge ran aground
and a tugboat overturned. Surely there'll be no point in trying to
watch this eclipse!
Indeed at 5:30PM on that Sunday, the 28th of November, the skies
over Brooklyn were still spewing out rain and gusts. But I had to open
the Brooklyn [College] Observatory just in case some hardy Association
member shows up for the scheduled eclipse watch. My father drove me to
the College and I signed in at the security gate. The guard knew of
the overnight stay at the Observatory and assured me that any other
astronomers will be directed to the Observatory.
As I walked across the campus I stepped over fresh puddles, rain-
slicked pavements, and broken tree branches. But then I saw a shadow
of me on the ground. I looked up and -- oh, no! -- the sky was
clearing and the Full Moon beamed brightly down!! Litterally in twenty
minutes the weather turned from a disgusting storm into a clear and
calm winter night!!
By 6:15PM I opened the Observatory. The Full Moon filled the dome
with brilliant beams. All around there was blue sky peppered with the
brighter stars. If I had somehow been dropped into the Observatory and
saw this scene I would never know that barely half an hour earlier I
was riding thru a snotty rain with the wipers flinging drops off of
the windshield.
I waited for the other astronomers. Their arrival was planned for
6PM to 7PM for two reasons. First it made control easier for the
security office being that the campus is officially closed on Sunday
night. Second, transit schedules fall off sharply late at night on
Sunday with a ha'hour or so between trains.
I heavily felt that people would have by mid afternoon turned off
any hope of seeing this eclipse and opted not to come. But there was
the brilliant Moon up there in the east. I swept out the rooms. Dirt
sifted in since the preceding Wednesday. I stopped up then for a thoro
cleaning in preparation for tonight's bunkin for the eclipse. I also
moved excess furniture to a storage room. During all this there was
that great big Moon up there bathing the room with fulsome light.
So I unpacked my camera and fitted it to the main scope. I trued
up the finder scope with an additional bracket. The pictures went off
smoothly. I shot the east and west halves of the Moon separately being
that at prime focus the Moon slightly overfills the 35mm frame. I then
set up for eyepiece projection to capture views of the craters and
bright spots. Under magnification, however, the Moon's image boiled
fiercely, likely from upper air wind. Any photos would be smeared into
uselessness. So I pulled down the camera and inspected the Moon with
various eyepieces.
It was a farout sight! Usually I don't get to view the Full Moon
under high power. The magnification, up to 292X, diluted the dazzle
and the minutest of rays, rills, spots were tacksharp. The boiling,
tho vigorous, did not impede eyeball appreciation of the Moon. It was
now about 7:30PM and no one else arrived. Really, would anyone come?
At 7:45PM there was loud rapping at the door. Nope, not one of us
astronomers. A guard stopping up to check on things. He was surprised
that I was the only one there. His jobsheet showed a group here. I
explained that due to the hideous weather all the preceding day pretty
much anyone fixing to come tonight was scared off. I let him in anyway
to look around. His rounds never included the Observatory before and
this is his first visit to it. He was a short mid aged fellow who knew
about the eclipse from the newspaper. He said he saw one from his
native Cuba and understood what this coming one should look like. The
eclipse was then still hours away so I gave him a walkaround of the
place and let him examine the Moon thru the main scope. He studied the
disc for several minutes in amazement and we chatted a bit about the
Moon in general. It was now 8PM.
I live near the College and altho the Observatory is a most
fitting place for eclipse viewing, it seemed daft to stay there all
night by myself. With no other attendees, now a full hour after the
scheduled arrival time, I decided to close the Observatory. I could go
home, rest up, and see the eclipse from my own yard.
The facility duly buttoned down I called my father, who soon
arrived at the Glenwood gate of the campus to pick me up. I explained
to the gatekeeper that the Observatory is now closed for the night and
there is no more activity there. He said he'll advise any latecomers
and in any event the gate closes for the night at 11PM.
At home I set up in my yard. I planned a series of photos thru my
600mm f8 solid cat and several with a 50mm f1.4 lens. The latter were
for capturing the Moon flanked by the Hyades and Pleiades in totality.
The air stayed very calm except for an occasional tree-rustling
breeze. I napped until 11PM to catch the late paenumbral phase and
first contact. The paenumbra was quite obvious at 11:20PM, when I
first stepped outside, as a brown ragged mistiness over the entire
eastern side of the Moon. The umbra came onto the Moon as a dark gray
shadow without noticeable tint or detail.
I then napped until 12:40AM to view the totality. When I went
outside the Moon was visible thruout the umbra, now steeped in a dark
orange-brown hue. During totality the Moon was bright in the sky by
eye, but I felt it was a shade darker than a pure textbook totality.
The southern side of the Moon was much lighter than elsewhere, giving
a 'crescent' aspect to the disc. By eye in this southern zone the
maria were plainly discernible while the rest of the disc was a
uniform brown-orange cast.
The 600mm lens and camera made an excellent low power scope
offering a spectacular two-degree field around the Moon. With a thin
screen there is minimal impedence of light between the lens and the
eye. Thru this the maria were identifiable over the whole disc with no
trouble at all. I deliberately chose this setup to avoid having one
photo-only rig and a separate eyeball instrument.
My father came out at about 1:15AM and inspected the Moon thru the
camera and by eye for about 20 minutes. He was impressed at how
beautifully the Pleiades and Hyades framed the Moon. We bantered about
the eclipse of last December [1992], which he saw from home while I
was at the Observatory, and how the Moon then almost disappeared in
totality.
He and I looked around and noted how really transparent the air
was. stars to 4-1/2 magnitude could be seen, including many I could
not offhand name. We picked out stars in southern Canis Major, Puppis,
Lepus, Hydra, and Monoceros. The whole sickle of Leo was rising thru
trees in the east and some stars in Lynx were overhead. The Orion
Nebula, Rosette Cluster, and Beehive were clearly in sight. I in the
following afternoon, with a planetarium program, assessed that the sky
admitted stars of 4.7 to our eyes. From Brooklyn, a nabe the size of
Toronto.
From my yard there is no open sky. All my views were thru the
leafless branches of overhanging trees. The north and northeast were
blocked by shredded clouds and the surrounding houses blocked the
southwest and northwest. The Moon cleared the roof of my house.
I switched to the 50mm lens for a skyscape of the Moon. Thru the
camera the Moon shrank almost to a point and I studied its brightness
against the stars in the sky. It handily outshone Sirius. To assign a
magnitude rating to the eclipsed disc, I hazard -2.
When totality ended I napped until 3AM for the late partial
phases. By now the Moon moved into the west and shone down my driveway
and the stars were blotted out by its growing brilliance. A few small
isolated shreds of cloud drifted in the south but never threatened the
eclipse. When the umbra cleared from the Moon I shot my last pictures
and turned in for the rest of the night.
I had leave from work on Monday, having signed for it a week or so
earlier. Good thing I did -- I slept solidly until lO:3OAM!
The photos, Fujichrome slides, were processed on Tuesday. They are
excellent, save for a few underexposures. The skyscapes are specially
lovely. They show the Moon, Hyades, Pleiades entangled in the tree
branches just as they stood over our house.
When I looked out the window upon waking up I saw a murky hazy day
with a weak Sun. Rain was forecast for the late afternoon. My father
said that when he woke up at around 6AM the dawn sky was cloud-
covered. But for us: What an eclipse!