It was one of the best for me too! Wanting to avoid crowds I went to Lakeside. When I arrived the full moon had the place lit up like daylight. During totality I had trouble finding my camera's viewfinder. The moon a deep rich coppery color, brighter on the lower right -- stars visible nearby -- the "new moon" sky blazing with stars -- Mars stunningly bright -- icy cold: those are some of my impressions. ------------------------------ On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 10:48 AM MDT Siegfried Jachmann wrote:

We also had a very successful eclipse watch at the Sandy Walmart. We had 7 telescopes in the main area and people with other scopes, spotting scopes and telephoto lenses scattered around nearby. We heard many appreciative comments

Jed Boal of channel 5 came by and did a live feed for the 10 o'clock news. There was a camera and no Patrick! ☺

Channel 13 came by during the eclipse. I haven't seen their footage. It's coming up at 11 am.

We had a steady stream of public from the time we set up until about 1:30. Some people stayed the whole time. We had kids in PJ's that came out of bed. They thoroughly enjoyed it. One young girl was exceptional in her science and math.

The lights at Walmart are brighter than the lights at Harmons. It would not be suitable for general star parties but for something like this it was good. Seeing was not great last night. A cold front was moving in and we saw high clouds after 1:15. They did not interfere with the observation.

We also showed all 3 major planets. One thing a little different, many people with cellphones attempted to take pictures of the planets and the Moon in eclipse. Some turned out pretty decent. Ken Porras took pictures through my scope again. If he wins anything in the photo contest, I want half of the prize. ☺

The color on the Moon was excellent. We started seeing red well before totality which was earlier than I remembered. The lights did NOT interfere with the color. We broke down at 2 and were gone before 3. Last man broke down at 2:30, just after the Moon came out of the shadow.

Siegfried

On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 4:36 AM, Wiggins Patrick <paw@getbeehive.net> wrote:

...

WOW! What an incredible experience.

Lots of portable scopes and binoculars in addition to the scopes in the buildings.

A very happy bunch of public was nice too. One of the kids in attendance noted she was smiling so much her mouth was hurting. :)

And everyone enjoyed views of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (the latter's rings are really opening up).

But the eclipse really stole the show.

Early on there were fears that approaching clouds might spoil the view but they either dissipated entirely or got so thin they could not be seen.

And could you believe all the color during totality? Wow (again).

Certainly one of the better lunar eclipses I've seen and definitely better than the last few we've had.

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