tetrads

[arnie-hauswald]

First of Four ( 1/4 ). 1:20 AM - 3:55 AM CDT observing and journaling. Rudimentary sketching. Naked eye gave the best color representation. ST-80 refractor. 25mm E.P. worked best. No Moon Filter once it went total. 25% for the Penumbra's. Rated it as a three (3) on the Danjon Scale. Brick red to my eyes. Not so much a "blood moon" as popularized by the media. A first total for me. Looking forward to the next three.
Cheers, -arnie-

[arnie-hauswald]

Second of four (2/4). Observing session this time with tripod mounted 15x70 giant binocular and 7x50 hand held binocular. S=3 (avg); T-=2/5 (below avg). High humidity this morning affected 'blood coloring' for me somewhat - sort of washing it out. Gave it a three (3) on the Danjon Scale. Late in the viewing session air temp and dew point evened out at 73deg. That's when I think T dropped from a 3/5 to a 2/5 for me. Good session though. Early on in totality, all of the Mare were in high relief. Even rays were evident on the surface.

As a bonus, pl. Uranus was readily visible in the giant binocs as a tiny dot about '7:00 o'clock' 1deg off the Moon. Using the 7x50 hand helds, Uranus was only visible using averted vision, and then only because I knew where it was.

Looking forward to the third of the four 'tetrads'.

-Arnie-

[rene-gedaly]

Arnie, thanks for posting your observations. Don't know how the first of this tetrad escaped my notice.

I was able to see the Oct 8 eclipse, too, and was able to make out good color for Uranus with 10x50 handhelds propped on top of my subcompact. Not only that, Uranus appeared about mag 6 at 10 o'clock--this was around 5 a.m.--and was so obvious that I doubted my first observations. Then again, I'm always reticent about claiming a hit until I'm 99.4% sure. Ivory soap. We had surprisingly good skies along the coast at the Bolivar Peninsula, and I've had a lot of luck there.

Looking forward to your next sightings. I was unaware of the Danjon scale; I'll be using that in the future. I can venture a good guess at what we saw then and may add that to my observing notes. Btw, my observing partner was Amelia Goldberg. What they say has certainly been true for me, having another observer with you to compare notes sharpens your own skills. And it's fun besides.