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Hurray for awesomely clear skies, because it allowed me to catch the total lunar eclipse from start to finish.

Managed to catch the first half of the eclipse at Marina Barrage with a bunch of close friends … along with loads of noisy children, other astronomy geeks and surrounded by kites attached with flashing lights which (thankfully) didn’t get in the way of the eclipse viewing.

The second half was caught from home.

Click to view original size.

This is possibly the first time lady luck’s on my side, considering my last blotched attempt at eclipse watching no thanks to an overcast sky (which resulted in loads of grainy photos). Today was completely different – witnessing a total lunar eclipse under a clear night sky was an experience on a totally new level.

I’ve collated all the images captured into a composite as you can see above. Click on it to view the composite in its full glory.

Oh yeah, you can find my photo submission on my favourite astronomy site, Spaceweather too.

Enjoy!

As predicted, the sky show did happen – the 10% illuminated crescent moon joined in the conjunction of Venus, Mars and Saturn in the western sky this evening.

Hurray for clear skies. The weather was pretty stormy yesterday until early this morning, but every wisp of cloud cover had cleared by early evening. It was a pretty starry night, though my attention was mainly focused on the western sky – where the moon and the three planets were hanging low. (Plus, stars aren’t easily photograph-able in Singapore skies anyway – too bright. :()

Planetary conjunction with the moon joining the crowd.

For larger resolutions, you may check out the photos I’ve submitted to Space Weather.

Ooh, and just take a look at the earthshine on the moon. I rarely see that here, actually – because the overpowering city lights. Hmm, tonight is indeed special.

As promised, I did end up dragging my woozy self up to the rooftop garden to capture this rare event in the sky. (Still pretty much reeling from the after-effects of IV sedation from my early morning procedure today – but nothing, absolutely nothing stops me from my sky watching!)

Thanks to the sky for co-operating. It made a pretty positive ending to an otherwise one-of-those-I-want-to-forget days.

There is supposed to be a meteor shower going on at this moment too, actually. But … the sky garden faces the wrong direction, so I doubt I would be able to do any decent fireball-watching. If you have a window facing the North-East however, don’t forget to look outside! (Do check whether the perseid meteor shower will be visible in your area first, though!)