lunar eclipse

It was a wonderful moonlit night on the way to Karnala.

Above....The Full Moon

Below...Eclipse mid way

About 20 of us from the Navi mumbai naturalists group gathered at a farm house in Karnala after quite a lot of birding around the famed bird sanctuary.

Total Eclipse..wow
On reaching the place, there was no power and the sky presented a great spectacle, bereft of the city lights.

I set up my telescope and all of us watched in awe Venus in its full Glory and the lovely full Moon.

After Dinner and after watching a part of the Oscar award winning movie "An inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore, went off to sleep, prepared to get up for the tryst with the Moon and the eclipse.

At 2.30p.m was woken up with the shrill alarm of the mobile reminder.

Lazily,

I got up and took the telescope out in the chill night. It was eerie at that time of the early misty morning and here I was .....in the midst of the clear night sky ... and wondering ....

What a lovely sight ...clear of all city lights ..me , the open sky, stars and the eclipse.

A few of my friends then got up and were really overjoyed to watch the grand spectacle of the total lunar eclipse unfold ...and what better to view it through a 4 in refractor.

It was quite thrilling for some of the kids, who I am sure enjoyed this grand spectacle and we had Sooraj trying out all stunts with his camera and fiddling around with the settings and experimenting to get that great pics of the eclipse. Finally after a lot of hard ! work, he succeeded in getting some good pics.

I set up my camera and then photographed through the 500 mm lense and then switched to the telescope a 4in refractor.

wow what a sight to behold from behind the lense.. and since This was my first attempt at astro photography, it was quite thrilling and joyful experience.

I have posted some pictures. Will edit other pics in ps and add them later.

ENJOY

May I request all to view and give me your suggestions and comments

thanks

kv subramanian

subbu