Lunar eclipse hidden by clouds

What should have been a rare event not seen in 372 years was after a long wait, unfortunately totally obscured by the clouds and went unseen in this area. A total lunar eclipse coincided with the winter solstice. While you can’t see the solstice, the eclipse promised to be an amazing spectacle and if that was not enough, the Ursids meteor shower was expected to send a few shooting stars through the darkened sky during the height of the eclipse…. but in the end, if that did not take place, we didn’t get to see it. The award winning barganews photographer O’Connor was out and about with his trusty Canon EOS 7D early this morning. In fact at 5.30 am he was already setting up his equipment outside the Duomo to record the changing colour of the moon. Depending on the time zone, a total lunar eclipse should make a dramatically colourful appearance — from bright orange to blood red to dark brown and perhaps gray. The image on the left was taken at 5.30 am and it looked as though we were in for a great show but heavy clouds rolling in covered the sky and completely obscured the moon as the dawn came up over Barga.

He might have a long wait to photograph it the next time as NASA reports that the last time these astronomical events took place in sync was on Dec. 21, 1638, and it won’t happen again until at least 2094.

no images were found

Nasa has a live webcam pointing at the moon, with luck we might be able to see something there – if not how about a site in Chile – here

Oggi sarà il giorno più buio da quattrocento anni. Accade per una particolare “coincidenza astrale”, di quelle che si verificano una o due volte al millennio, e di cui se ne perde la memoria finché non ricapita di nuovo: un’eclisse di Luna in coincidenza con il solstizio d’inverno.

“Un fenomeno davvero eccezionale, che dall’anno 1 dopo Cristo ad oggi è capitato una volta sola, il 21 dicembre 1638”, spiega Geoff Chester dell’Osservatorio Navale degli Stati Uniti. “Per fortuna – sorride l’astronomo – non dovremo aspettare altrettanto per osservarne un altro identico, perché ricapiterà il 21 dicembre del 2094”.