Hey folks,
so here's what the eclipse was like for me:
I had gone into the Dölauer Heide, the city forest of Halle, and climbed the
Kolkturm, a viewing tower from which I hoped to get a good view of the horizon. I was there around 15.45, the sky was clear above but mostly cloudy on the horizon. I could see Venus, though - 15 minutes
before sunset!
Two young men with cameras came up, and I thought they'd be there for the eclipse, too. They only took a photos of the surroundings, kept chatting about firefighter jobs and complaining about the cold, and then they left me alone again.
15.55 - just before the end of totality - I got a last view of the sun, a bright glowing red through lead-grey clouds. Six minutes after that, the sun would set, two more minutes later the moon would rise. The Northeast, where the eclipsed moon was about to rise, was clouded, but the clouds were moving swiftly and I hoped to get a view of the eclipse.
A young family with two small agile children appeared, another one followed later. But the clouds didn't move as fast as I'd like them to. Well, I kept watching the skies with my naked eyes and also with 8x30 binoculars, scanning the region where the moon had to be - and so I was the first to notice its glow through the clouds at 16.25.
Its yellow shine disappeared in the clouds, though, too fast to notice its shape. Immediately after that, some graupel / soft hail fell. What a timing!
However, a few minutes after that we got another, slightly longer glimpse and could recognise that the moon was only half lit: The darkness of the clouds was moving across the lunar surface, that other darkness on the upper right side of the moon wasn't. The umbra!
That was enough for the families so they headed home. I stayed on top of the tower, though, waiting and hoping for another glimpse. A big cloud - the soft hail bringer - had moved from the West to the zenith. Jupiter was visible and dusk was still bright. A friend called me and we talked for a while. Around 16.45 I told her: "Wait a moment, it's coming out now. It's coming out now!" And then I screamed right into her ear in triumph and jubilance: For I did not only see the moon, still yellow from its low altitude, with a bit on the upper right missing due to the eclipse. No, I even saw the red light inside the umbra! For the shadow of Earth is not completely dark, it's brightened up a little by a red light which the atmosphere of our planet casts into the otherwise black shadow. This red light makes the moon visible even in total eclipse, and I was still able to see it on the eclipsed part of the moon - in my binoculars and even with the naked eye. This was so much more than I had expected, so I really had to shout it out!
This image is similar to what I saw, but not nearly as splendid as the real view.
Kris, perhaps this is what you saw, too? At what time did you get your glance of the moon?
Oh, I just had to get out my mp3-player and listen to "The Seal of the Bleeding Moon" by Sobre Nocturne and "Draconian Trilogy" by a certain Swedish occult symphonic metal band. I couldn't help myself but to sing along - but that's ok, I was alone up there.
Well, I kept watching the rest of the eclipse with clear skies towards the moon. I could follow the umbral light until a few minutes after 17.00. First I lost it from the naked eye view, then even in the binoculars. Now it really looked simply as if someone had taken a bite out of the moon. Some cloud had approached in the meantime and covered the moon about ten minutes before the end of the partial eclipse. I got another clear glimpse at 17.17 - 17.18; just in time to see the moon leaving the umbra.
After that I climbed down from the tower and started to go home, happy to have successfully observed an eclipse after two complete failures / clouded-outs this year.
Cheers!
Markus Umbraphilus
