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RASC Calgary Centre - Articles and Photos from the
Lunar Eclipse Event - Feb 20, 2008 at the RAO

Page last updated March 9, 2008

Lunar Eclipse Night - February 20, 2008 at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory

Larry McNish

Once again, the RAO, TELUS World of Science and RASC put on an "Eclipse Night" at the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory on February 20, 2008.

Given the turnout for last August's lunar eclipse we were expecting possibly a couple of hundred people at most given the time of year. Boy were we surprised! Approximately 450 public attendees turned out - probably due to the great publicity by Dr. Langill of the RAO and Alan Dyer of the TELUS World of Science preceding the event. This was the largest attendance we have had at an RAO event.

It was a perfectly clear night for such an event with the Moon rising in the east just at sunset and the eclipse starting immediately after that. The RASC volunteers had set up a dozen telescopes plus a set of large binoculars for the public and the line-ups started right away. There were so many people arriving that parking soon became a problem. Thanks goes to Brian Fenerty who stepped right in as traffic director. The parking lot filled up, as was the road to the observatory. Some people even had to park on the shoulder of highway 22 and hike up the hill to take in the talks and sights.

Two speakers gave presentations to a totally packed visitor centre - Dr. David Kelley on "Ancient People and Eclipse Phenomena" and Roland Dechesne on "The Science of Lunar Eclipses".

On site were 3 television stations doing live interviews and taking video of the event for newscasts that evening.

Although it was a cold and windy night the crowds never let up. A highlight for many was looking through the RAO 1.8m ARCT telescope at Saturn. Another side-show was watching the uncontrolled US spy satellite USA 193 on its last orbit before destruction by the US that evening. Finally, during total eclipse, many of the public got their first look at the night sky from the Rothney and we switched to showing Saturn, Mars and deep sky objects with the ruddy red moon hovering in the east.

I would like to thank all the volunteers that made the event possible:
Alan Dyer

Last night we had about 450 people at the U of C Rothney Observatory for the eclipse night. Very, very successful indeed! Almost too much, for traffic control. A very special thanks is owed to Brian Fenerty from the RASC for running the traffic control down at the entrance for most of the night.

According to Brian he was not turning people away, but people had to park on the highway and walk a km up the road up as it was lined with cars either side by about 6:30 pm. It was the best attended public night on record as best we can tell.

We had the event at the RAO and not TWS because: From what Terence Dickinson told me, who was watching various national media reports, the only other "eclipse party" that got a mention on Canadian national news was at the Ontario Science Centre. Calgary's event did get national attention. Lots of places were clear and everyone got great coverage on their local media.

Kudos to all for making last night a great success. Too bad we did not also see the USA 193 spy satellite debris enter and burn up as well, to top off the night. I looked and saw nothing at the predicted time. I think we were too far south, as they did hit it at 8:30 as planned and broke it up.

There were lots of RASC scopes and folks in attendance so lots for people to look thru and experts to talk to. Kudos to the RASC for their support. We cannot do these events without them.

The RAO ran two talks in the Visitor Centre and they were packed.


Dr. Phil Langill

It was the biggest crowd I've ever seen at the RAO! We will have to address the parking situation for crowds this large. Nine times out of ten, when we send out an invite to the public to come to an event, it gets too cold, or the event is too late at night, or the clouds come, or school is the next day, or... All the reasons why people don't come didn't happen last night. The media coverage was great, and all the variables were in our favor. I still think the RASC has connections...

A colleague said he tried to catch the webcast, but wasn't seeing the stream. I know the video link from camera to the webcast equipment was good, and the equipment said the video was streaming, but it go so busy so fast that I didn't have a moment to go online to actually check.

Thanks to all for your help last night. Our RAO/TWOS/RASC collaborative efforts have been really successful. Let's keep this going. Lots of great pictures were taken last night.

According to Google Analytics, on Feb 20th we had 1694 hits on our eclipse webcast from 76 cities across Canada. Most were from Calgary and nearby, and most just watched the eclipse for a couple of minutes, a hand full for 10 minutes or more (the longest was 25 minutes).

From outside of Canada there were 49 hits. Mostly from the US (17 States), but folks from Columbia, Spain, Mexico, Australia, Portugal, Belgium and Greece had a look too.


The Event


(The red arrows indicate the Moon's motion through the Earth's shadow.
The Moon will actually be rising at sunset during the event - see next diagram.)


Diagram showing the path of the Moon (and the Earth's shadow) at the start of the event.

The Timetable:

Feb 20No ISS pass. No Iridium Flares.
 17:52Moon rises
 18:00Sun sets
 18:06Saturn rises
 18:44Lunar Eclipse Partial phase begins
 19:04-19:09Satellite USA 193 pass SW to E
 19:26½ in ½ out
 19:27Uranus sets
 19:51Twilight ends
 20:01Total phase begins
 20:20Mars transits
 20:26Mid-Eclipse
 20:51Totality ends
 21:25½ out ½ in
 22:09Lunar Eclipse Partial phase ends



The Photos (click on any photo to see a larger version)

Photos are displayed here with the permission of the owner of the photo.
In all cases the photo copyright resides with the photographer!
You must get proper authorization to make any use of them
beyond viewing them on this site for your personal enjoyment!

Larry McNish

Eclipse Composite 1
Eclipse Composite 2
8:39 PM - The Moon at totality

5:40 PM - Nearly sunset at the RAO.
5:40 PM - Scopes are ready
Note the TV crew setting up.
5:48 PM - Sunset heralds the start
of the eclipse.

5:50 PM - Jack and Dean are ready too.
5:50 PM - The shadow people start arriving.
6:07 PM - First look at the Moon through
the trees on the East.

9:34 PM - We're still at it.
It's cold and windy.
6:55 PM
7:29 PM

9:22 PM
10:03 PM


Dr. Phil Langill

8:14 PM - Watching the eclipse
8:18 PM - Some of the crowd outdoors

8:19 PM - Some of the crowd outdoors
8:45 PM - Some of the crowd at the
presentations.


Don Hladiuk


9:17 PM -
7:49 PM -
8:52 PM -

9:28 PM -
11:23 PM -

Dick Lowndes


8:50 PM -
8:52 PM -


Keith Armstrong


7:57 PM -
8:04 PM -


Ryan May


A unique composite with two different exposures of the Moon combined
to increase detail and to show Saturn to the lower left as well.


Rob Glasser

Photos taken from Rob's backyard in NE Calgary. (His first attempt ever, at any kind of astro-photography.)

Rob had approximately a dozen people stop by to ask questions about the eclipse and have a look through through his 8 inch Dobsonian telescope at the Moon and Saturn.






Ed Wozney

Photo taken from Ed's backyard in Calgary.
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