For those who slept through it

The Lunar Eclipse of December 21, 2010 William Castleman

Lunar eclipses, like pretty much all readily visible astronomical events, are indisputably awesome. They’re also commonly scheduled for the middle of the night, a rather inconvenient hour to be hanging around outdoors, particularly in the middle of winter. But for those of you who slept through last night’s lunar event, behold: a time-lapse video of the moon plunged into blackness (more like redness, really) by the shadow of the Earth.

Last night’s eclipse was the first one since 1638 to coincide with the winter solstice, otherwise known as the longest night of the year. It began around 1:30 a.m. EST reaching total eclipse just over an hour later.

But if you failed to spend the middle part of last night gazing skyward, you can enjoy the whole thing in time lapse below. The video below comes courtesy University of Florida veterinary pathology professor and sometimes astrophotographer William Castleman.

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse from William Castleman on Vimeo.

15 Comments

That's awesome. It was partly cloudy here last night so we only got to see parts of it. What music did u use?

Incredibly cool, thank you for posting this wonderful photography complete with appropriate music soundtrack! I was buried under a full fledged snow storm so could not see this amazing astronomical spectacle first hand. Thank again to William Castleman! Happy Winter Solstice.

its been raining in california so my skies were completely covered by clouds. it would have been impossible for me to see the eclipse. thanks for posting the video.

Who knew Mars was so close!?

Beautiful photography. Thank you for posting and capturing such a beautiful event Mr. Castleman.

New Moon or Red Eclipse
It's maybe look like a new moon which we can see each month and it dose bring happy feeling for nice future , but some time the Red Eclipse comes every while, but the ecliptic time dose stay only for couple of minutes , Farther more we have the new moon stay for very long time each month.
www.natshah.com/painting/new-moon-or-red-eclipse.html

holy crap, that's really cool! the haunting ethereal music is a perfect fit (sounds like an excerpt from gustav holst's "the planets").

Reminds me of Ladyhawke

Here is an awesome video of the eclipse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqc0MJegsc&hd=1

Hey any moon gazer, can you answer my question?
Why was the camera jumping around?

Hey, I don't know space stuff, but I'm in a state of glee to respond, because that one's easy. The moon moves. In the duration of the eclipse, it was dropping toward the horizon. It's a two hour period reduced to two minutes, and given the shakiness, it looks like the moon was being tracked manually, rather than by computer or something. The bigger jumps could be caused by anything that might have interrupted the process. Dr. Castleman might have needed to go to the bathroom. = )

I believe the music is from Debussy's LaMer. Can anyone confirm?

That was sweet. Thanks for the video! It was overcast where I was as well so I certainly do appreciate it!

Close: Debussy's Nocturnes.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015S5FOW/ref=dm_dp_trk3?ie=UTF8&qid=1293070525&sr=1-4

Viewed most of it, but it became too cold and I was getting sleepy, so I just went to bed without witnessing the whole thing... Thanks to this video those of you that missed the event now know what it looked like.

Last night I saw a moon winter time..
http://sunlesstanningsite.org/five-tips-regarding-the-sunless-tanning.html



June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email
Assistant Editor: Colin Lecher | Email
Assistant Editor: Rose Pastore | Email

Contributing Writers:

Kelsey D. Atherton | Email
Francie Diep | Email
Shaunacy Ferro | Email

circ-top-header.gif
circ-cover.gif