Total lunar eclipse visible from Seattle

Seattle astronomy buffs are downright pessimistic about seeing celestial events, even those that happen during our good-weather months. (And we have them.) Thus in the week before the total lunar eclipse of January 20, 2019, I posted this on the Seattle Astronomy Facebook page.

Amazingly enough, at about mid-day on eclipse day the clouds actually did begin to part a little, and a check of the Seattle Clear Sky Chart revealed a prediction that we’d have just 30 percent cloud cover come eclipse hour, and that it would be downright clear late in the evening.

One learns not to trust these things, but when the full Moon actually got up above the trees and into a clear sky out back of Seattle Astronomy headquarters, I decided this was going to happen and hauled the telescope out of the basement and onto the back deck. As the eclipse began I snapped a quick photo in order to express my amazement.

The shadow of Earth is moving across the Moon and we can SEE it in Seattle! pic.twitter.com/xgt4oF2RpH

— Seattle Astronomy (@SeattleAstro) January 21, 2019

I am not an astrophotographer, as people who evaluate the entries for the Seattle Astronomical Society‘s quarterly photo contest always remind me. This one was shot with my smartphone, though when using it with the telescope I find it devilishly difficult to get the proper aim through the eyepiece (must pick up one of those gadgets from Cloud Break Optics soon.) My other “astro” camera is an old Canon Powershot A530, which is pretty easy to just stick up to the eyepiece and shoot.

I used the phone to get a pretty OK, if somewhat pixellated, pic at totality, too.


Interestingly enough, I found that the color of the “blood Moon” wasn’t quite so pronounced through the telescope and camera is it was in my naked-eye view. I think the magnification diffuses the color a bit, and the camera isn’t really made for that sort of work.

Even my sweetie, who is not normally prone to looking through telescopes at night in January, or any other month, for that matter, went out quite a few times for a magnified look, and we both spent most of the eclipse watching from a warm environment inside behind the glass of the French doors.

I hope you got a chance to see the eclipse wherever you were. The next one visible in Seattle will happen in May of 2021.