Lunar eclip­se over Spits­ber­gen

Mon
21 Jan
2019

Today (21 Janu­ary 2019) was the day (well, it is not real­ly a day, the sun does not rise at all here curr­ent­ly) of a major astro­no­mic­al event, the next one after the solar eclip­se in 2015. The lunar eclip­se that was visi­ble in Spits­ber­gen from appro­xi­m­ate­ly 6 a.m. was cer­tain­ly worth set­ting the alarm clock for.

Today’s lunar eclip­se: the “blood moon” over Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

After a short obser­va­ti­on of the initi­al lunar eclip­se over Lon­gye­ar­by­en, we went out into Advent­da­len to get fur­ther away from the big city lights and to get a natu­ral back­ground for the impres­si­ve celes­ti­al event.

Lunar eclip­se over Advent­da­len: the “blood mmoon” over Spits­ber­gen (I).

The dura­ti­on of the lunar eclip­se was much more agreeable than that of the abo­ve-men­tio­ned solar eclip­se, the total pha­se of which did not last lon­ger than 2 minu­tes and a few seconds. This could make the astro-pho­to­graph­ers sweat despi­te of the tem­pe­ra­tures around minus 20 degrees (C) back then.

Mond­fins­ter­nis im Advent­da­len: der “Blut­mond” über Spitz­ber­gen (II).

Not that it was any war­mer today, but we could take it with time: the total pha­se of today’s lunar eclip­se was near­ly an hour long, so next to taking pho­tos, we could just enjoy the event and a sip of hot cho­co­la­te – a very good thing con­side­ring the tem­pe­ra­tu­re. The stars were ama­zing, they came out bright and strong due to the redu­ced moon­light. Very impres­si­ve!

Stars during the lunar eclip­se in Advent­da­len.

Final­ly, my cur­rent ceter­um cen­seo: I have made a new pho­to book, focus­sing on aeri­al pho­to­gra­phy and thus show­ing the Arc­tic from a very unsu­al per­spec­ti­ve. In theo­ry, the book is in Ger­man, but in prac­ti­ce, it does hard­ly have text. 134 out of 137 pages do just have stun­ning pho­tos, pla­cen­a­mes and a litt­le map. Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (2) – Aeri­al Arc­tic shows Jan May­en and Sval­bard from the air.

Rolf’s new pho­to book Nor­we­gens ark­ti­scher Nor­den (2) – Aeri­al Arc­tic shows Jan May­en and Spits­ber­gen from a new and stun­ning per­spec­ti­ve.

Do you agree that spitsbergen-svalbard.com is a gre­at re­source for any arc­tic enthu­si­ast?

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