Readers who have been following The Catholic Astronomer for a while may recall a post from 2017 about Dang Nguyen and his efforts to photograph the August 2017 total solar eclipse (click here for that post). Nguyen is a student at my college (Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky), in the Communication Arts Technology program (a very cool program—their students win awards on a regular basis), studying photography. Well during the January 2019 total lunar eclipse, he got out the camera and went to work again. Check out the photos below!
Left—the eclipsed moon. Right—a simulation of the eclipse, made using the Stellarium app. Note how Nguyen’s photo captures many of the background stars that were near the moon in the sky. (Click the image to enlarge for a better view of the stars.)
This photo also shows not just the eclipsed moon, but the background stars…
…as does this one…
…and this one.
In this side-by-side comparison of the moon, cropped from each of the the above three Nguyen photos, you can see how the moon passes toward the left against the background stars. (Click image to enlarge and make the stars more visible.)
Compare Dang Nguyen’s photograph from Kentucky to Deirdre Kelleghan’s sketch made from Ireland at approximately the same time. Note the stars that appear in both (arrowed).
Dang Nguyen (right) with his sister and father, near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, for the August 2017 total solar eclipse.
