Lunar Eclipse 21 Jan 2019 – Trail over Cologne Cathedral
[Update] WOW, what a pleasant surprise. This image made it as Astronomy Picture of the Day on 22 Jan 2019!
This lunar eclipse trail shows the partially and totally eclipsed Moon over the Unesco World Heritage Cologne Cathedral, Germany, amongst ultra-bright city lights. Normally this isn’t an astronomy hot spot, and it’s hard to make out any stars beyond Mag 2 at this location. But given the geometry of the setting moon and the lunar eclipse I simply had to do this. ;-)
Composite of 68 images for the moon trail from 04h41 until 07h29 CET edited in Lightroom/Photoshop, thereof 3 for the foreground and the dawn sky at 07h29 CET, removing a bicyclist and a pedestrian. Some horizontal stray light from the street lights.
We spent a total of 4 hours at around -7 °C at the Hohenzollern Bridge, but that’s the fate of the astronomically minded.
Some more details on the eclipse contact times from Fred Espenak’s EclipseWise.com:
| Lunar Eclipse Contacts | |||||||
| Eclipse Event | Contact | Time UT1 |
Time CET |
||||
| Penumbral Begins | P1 | 02:36:28.8 | 03:36:29 | ||||
| Partial Begins | U1 | 03:33:55.0 | 04:33:55 | ||||
| Total Begins | U2 | 04:41:18.6 | 05:41:18 | ||||
| Greatest Eclipse | Greatest | 05:12:18.0 | 06:12:18 | ||||
| Total Ends | U3 | 05:43:18.1 | 06:43:18 | ||||
| Partial Ends | U4 | 06:50:42.0 | 07:50:42 | ||||
| Penumbral Ends | P4 | 07:48:05.8 | 08:48:05 | ||||
Moon set at the location was 08:35 CET.
| Eclipse Durations | |
| Eclipse Phase | Duration |
| Penumbral (P4 – P1) | 05h11m37.0s |
| Partial (U4 – U1) | 03h16m47.1s |
| Total (U3 – U2) | 01h01m59.4s |