Lunar Eclipse - Blood Moon

Last night the moon dissapeared behind the earth's shadow. Over a period of a few hours the moon changed from an extremely bright full moon to the dark ochre colour of a blood moon.

Here is some information regarding the phenomenom from NZ news.


"The phenomenon last happened seven years ago.A lunar eclipse happens when the sun, Earth and moon are all in a perfect alignment and the moon falls onto Earth's shadow. Then some of the sun's light from behind the earth comes through Earth's atmosphere and reflects onto the moon creating the red glow.There are many superstitions associated with a lunar eclipse.
In Chinese history it was believed the moon was being swallowed by dragons.
And some Japanese believed the red glow was poison falling from the sky and they would cover their water wells.
And despite the common term "the man in the moon", Maori believe it is a woman in the moon and her name is Rona. When an eclipse occurs some Maori believe Rona tries to attack and destroy it. When the moon later reveals itself it is said to reappear more young and beautiful."

Here are the photos I got. They were taken in order from start to total eclipse. I didnt get any photos of the return cycle as my patience and warmth ran out. :) Taking photo's of the moon is quite hard but I think I had it figured by the end of the night. Would have loved another 200mm on my lens though. All shots were taken at 300mm, low ISO, shutter between 1/8 to 1/30 and aperture around 22-29. Tripod and remote release also essential.

Enjoy!

Lady Nelson

Step 2 in Hobart, apart from brekky which went down like a bag of nails, was to head out into the Derwent river aboard the replica of the Lady Nelson. A small vessel which played a vital part in the growth of Australia as a colony.

A short spiel to keep you all informed:

"LADY NELSON, the name of a 60-ton brig which for 25 years had an important part in the early history of Australia. Built at Deptford, England, in 1799, she had a centre-board keel invented by Captain Schank, and as she made her way down the Thames, sailors on vessels on the river ironically christened her "His Majesty's Tinder box". "

Looking back at a slightly more modern vessel.



After motoring upwind down the river, we turned around and unfurled the sails for a gentle wander down the river. With a stiff breeze and only half the sails used, we still managed a reasonable speed. The voyage to Australia from England would take 8 months.



More sails...



Heading down the Derwent towards the bridge...



The ships bell... (duh!)



And wheel (duh x 2)




Passing under the bridge with the gang...



More bridge of course...





Once we headed back up the river we had to furl the sails and motor back to port. Here is the crew clambering up the rigging to stow the sails properly...



You can join up and sail this boat yourself as a trainee. Go to http://www.ladynelson.org.au/corframe.htm

Mt Wellington @ Dawn

Well for some crazy reason there was a dawn trip planned up to the top of Mt Wellington to see the sunrise. Always up for the challenge of waking up early we ascended in the nice warm car to the beauty of the sun rising over Hobart. It was well...

COLD!!!!!! AARGGHH my god it was so cold and windy even with 45 layers on. Mind you the fact that all I had on from the waist down were a pair of King Gee's that dont stop much wind. I forgot my tripod but that didn't matter because if I wasn't holding on, my camera would have been blown all the way to Port Arthur.




The stairs down to the lookout. The observation house was locked (Damn you rangers!).



Almost...



Looking back at the nice warm windprooof shelter before the sun came up...



So close...



Here she comes... Sorry about the wobbly horizons, it was windy and I forgot how to correct it in photoshop (read - lazy)...



Bring on the warmth!



The rocks atop the mountain glowing red...



There was still snow and ice buried between the boulders...



Even warmer now with the sun hitting the shelter... Still locked though...



A little exerpt from the NPWS:

"Block faulting is in part responsible for the main landform trends of eastern and central Tasmania. Mount Wellington and the Derwent Valley were formed some 150 million years ago by block faulting. This has influenced the erosional development of the size and form of the Wellington Range. Individual faults have vertical displacements up to 600m.
Erosion has since exposed the 350m thick horizontal sheet of dolerite, featuring the Organ Pipes on the eastern face of the Mountain. This area has been eroded back approximately two kilometres since the escarpment was produced 10-15 million years ago. Some of the faults are considered significantly older than this."

Cradle Mountain - Marions Lookout

On Saturady we headed out to Cradle Mountain to show Breyley who needed to see it before she left. The weather was perfect, low winds no rain sun beeming down, perfect. Until we got to Cradle where the wind picked up and it dumped down with rain.

The (I forgot its name) Dam, I was hoping it would be spilling after all the recent downpours. Oh well...



Cool Rock wall here, I'd had too much caffeine so my hands were shaking too much to get a decent photo. The colours were cool, providing a bouder didn't decide to come down and give you a closer look...



Lazy tourists in the car with the heating while I slave away capturing the moment :)



Double rainbows were the order of the day at Cradle. A lot of them were below us as we climbed too. I can tell you that someone was lying about the pots of gold. Bastards...



A fair few of these around the place looking for scraps of food. I can only presume some people are dumb enough to feed them. They weren't getting any of our pizza shapes.



The usual suspects near the summit of Marions. It was raining too heavily to get any more pictures as I didn't want to bring the camera out to get wet. There was enough snow for a few snowballs though :)

Hobart for a day...

We are so keen at finding new thrills down here that we all piled into the trusty old Volvo for a day trip down to Hobart to help Benny get some research stuff from the state archives. Well Benny did research, Matt and I ate fish and chips, took photos and walked through shops, yes shops, they have them in Hobart!

Not so early morning piled into the Volvo heading out of the hole...



My backseat comrade for the day Rhiannon. How wet is the back of your neck Matt?



The beacon of the harbour, Aurora Australis. Australia's one and only icebreaker. Such a cool ship I wish I could go down there one day before it all melts.

Note the raised bow which is designed to slide up on top of the ice and use the weight of the ship to break it down. Not sure whether it would wallow like a pig in the massive southern ocean, vomit comit perhaps?



This brand new fishing trawler looked so shmick. I took a few in black and white for fun. Processing already reduced images has resulted in some degredation of images, the full size pics look awesome though.



Mount Wellington all covered in snow. It was bloody cold out of the sun.



More orange stuff....



Some of the awesome restored boats layed up in the harbour...



More B&W fun...



The trip home dodging the fuzz which were out everywhere...



After a brief rainstorm the sunlight was trying to punch its way through the clouds, looked a lot more impressive in real life...



Rhiannon was summoning the rainbows, there were 2, but the camera could only see one at a time :(



And then we were home, quickly off to soccer for a 1-1 draw, Aww I wanted a win...

last Saturday night....

We had a few drinks last Saturday night. The usual suspects turned out for a night of excess consumption.

Here we all are. This is on record the worst photo of me I have ever seen so dont complain if I post a bad one of you up here! I wasnt even that drunk at this point :)



The gentleman on the left, however, was that drunk at that time. Hank on the right...



Correct music selection and beer choice essential to a good night.



mmm Corn chips...



And out the back the usual inferno was happening... How to smell like an airport in 1 step, stand in some Kerosene smoke...



Cheerio :) More to come soon....