What a great night we had. Five of us met up outside my home: Conor Mc Donald, his girl friend Ciara, Jonathan Bingham, Stephen Mc Govern and myself. In three cars we drove to the top of Slieve Gallion mountain range straight to the summit. On the way up at 21.00 Stephen and I could clearly see the penumbra as a light grey shading on the lower left of the lunar disk. We set up our gear consisting of binos, 3 scopes and 4 cameras. First contact with the Umbra looked like a dark cut across the Moon then time suddenly began to speed up. The Umbra seemed to race across the Moon very rapidly taking a larger and larger 'bite' which began to turn a rose hue even at a very early stage. The umbra seemed jet black at the beginning however with averted vision we could still see the south limb of the Moon without optical aid. At totality the Moon was a deep red with a golden - yellow crown on top with a dark centre. A white - blue fringe on the north could be seen at one stage with the naked eye which was striking through Stephen's 4" reflector.

            All of us were hard at work taking images non stop which proved to be more than a challenge due to the bitter cold wind-chill factor and the fact that our cameras shook in the wind so we had to shelter behind the cars to get an image at all. At one stage the Moon vanished from the LCD screen due to its darkness. During totality we thought the eclipsed Moon reached a Danjon value of 2 or 3 but then settled for 3.

            It was a fairly dark eclipse but not completely dark. The sky turned black and the Milky Way stood out with ease with stars to mag + 6.5 on view in places. M31 and all the other naked eye DSO's were easy to see. - The sky was beautiful and so was the Moon surrounded by a number of bright stars which could be seen even on the cameras LCD screen. Jonathan cooked us a few much appreciated burgers with this BBQ which were washed down with a warm cup of tea which brought some life back into us.

            We watched the Umbra leave the Moon until the left hand edge looked like a golden waning crescent Moon followed later by a last 1/4 phase. We drove back to my home down the frosty mountain roads and observed/imaged the remainder of the eclipse from there. Jonathan and I stayed out until 03.30 and seen a bright halo around the Moon which was a nice end to this wonderful frosty and peaceful session. Overall it was a complete and utter success!! - Didn't get to bed until 05.00.

Clear skies

Martin Mc Kenna, Astronomy Ireland member from Co. Derry