image by Pete Lawrence , Selsey, England, and Gulf.com
Lunar eclipses are about the most common semi-rare events in astronomy and they are always a pleasure. Pete Lawrence, managed to capture one transient event - a plane flying by - on top of another - the eclipse. The attached beginning of a story from the Gulf.com website shows another, unfortunately not rare, aspect of eclipses and astronomy in general. Although the story’s author got it right, the headline writer must not understand eclipses at all! One thing that amateur astronomers can do is help promote a factual understanding of the sky. Some amateurs write columns for local newspapers and I have often been on local TV and radio news to comment on space news and visible sky phenomena. Local media are always interested in a local angle to a story so you should contact various ones to suggest that you are available to provide backup info. Or if one of your images is used for LPOD, play it up and call the local media to let them know you’ve made the big time. Just try to keep a straight face!
Note: I will be travelling to San Francisco for the next few days and will probably only post “Best of LPODs.” If you are in San Francisco Monday night come to my Morrison Planetarium lecture on Titan - here are details.
Technical Details:
September 7, 2006. Canon 20Da, Skywatcher 80ED f/7.5 refractor. Prime focus setup. Exposure 1/60s @ ISO 100
Related links:
Pete’s spectacular web site
Yesterday's LPOD: A Table of Contents
Tomorrow's LPOD: Eclipse of Uranus
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