Penumbral eclipse moon

Posted on by Ian C.

There’s a “sort of eclipse” of the moon tonight – Phil Plait’s article describes it well: … the Moon misses the umbra, but only by a tiny bit. That’s why this is called a deep penumbral eclipse; it passes deeply into the secondary shadow of the Earth, but not the really dark one … what will you see … the northern part of the Moon will look darker than the southern side, but neither will be dark dark. More dusky, probably. It should certainly be noticeable …

And here’s what I can see right now … I took two pictures, the first at 7:15pm and the second at 7:45pm, to show how the eclipse is getting stronger (you can also see how the shadow appears to rotate around the moon, because of our location on the Earth):

Penumbral eclipse moon, 7:15pm February 2017
Penumbral eclipse moon, 7:45pm February 2017

First drive with MINIs of Kissimmee

Posted on by Ian C.

We learned today of a MINI drive nearby, so I washed my car and we headed down to Championsgate to meet everyone – and there was a good turnout of 15+ MINIs there!

 

I took a photo of each MINI individually, just like the old days!

 

Once everyone had arrived, we set off on a maybe 20 minute drive, over to food trucks in Kissimmee – complete with reserved parking for our group!

 

Good fun to join some MINIs again! Thanks to Joey for organizing 🙂

 

Pro Bowl 2017

Posted on by Ian C.

America’s big annual sports event is the Super Bowl, happening in Texas next weekend and hopefully bringing the New England Patriots to another win! Last night however was the “Pro Bowl” which is supposed to be a “best of the rest” game – and since it came to the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, we decided to watch a real live NFL game there!
A short twenty minute drive to the highway exit got converted to an hour by the time we parked (it’s a big stadium and a popular event!) but after that an easy walk into the stadium and to our great seats – in fact a big part of the entertainment was where we sat, surrounded by fans and close enough to the field to interact with some of the performers.

During the game I mostly watched the action, but here’s a few photos and videos I took early on, including the first touchdown right in front of our seats: