Filed under: astronomy, photos | Tags: Fuertes Observatory, lunar eclipse, photos
Many Cornellians braved the freezing weather for their last chance (for most of them) to see a lunar eclipse at the Fuertes Observatory. I was surprised to find dozens of students waiting on line late on a school night while my fingers were turning blue.
The room was nearly pitch black save for a couple red lamps. It took quite a few tries for me to be able to hold my dinky digital camera still long enough to get a picture this clear using night-vision. Not an easy task when you’re shivering. The complex machinery crowded the small room atop the old observatory. The soft red glow gave you the subtle feeling that you were sneaking around the lab of a mad scientist (All scientist are mad. If you had to fight as hard for funding, you’d be mad too). The illusion was quickly shattered as the room filled up with chatty student in flip-flops (flip-flops in the winter I will never understand) discussing the finer points of college life that I will not bother mentioning.
During my first turn at the telescope, I found the view through the finder scope a lot better. Although it was not my intent to get the eyepiece in this shot, I think it looks kewl.
The only annoyance is the cross-hairs.
Later in the night, the telescope was focused better and I managed to get a couple pictures without the cross hairs from the main scope. These were the best shots I could get in the limited time I had at the scope. By this time the room was completely full and I decided to give up trying to take pictures. It was almost 11pm and I was loosing all sensation in my fingers, even with gloves on. I watched the eclipse through my moonroof (while carefully driving of course) on my way home. As soon as I got home, I regretted leaving but it would have been difficult to get more pictures anyway. At least that ‘s what I keep telling myself to feel better about chickening out.
The last shot was very dark. I used PhotoShop to lighten it up a little but I’m not an PS expert.
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