8 replies to this topic

[asaint]

My Lunar Eclipse Experience

[Jim Rosenstock]

Good job!

Never pass up a chance to do astronomy outreach!

Cheers,

Jim

[runner]

Wonderfull, I'm off on a 10 day in the Southern Carib on April 4th... Just taking 15X70s and a monopod but hopefully I'll see some great skies....Emerald Princess..Just in case...

[Jim Rosenstock]

Wonderfull, I'm off on a 10 day in the Southern Carib on April 4th... Just taking 15X70s and a monopod but hopefully I'll see some great skies....Emerald Princess..Just in case...

The biggest struggle with observing from cruise ships is not the ocean waves, but the light pollution generated onboard ship. Finding even a small bit of deck space with a sky view but no bright lights will be your challenge. You can try to talk the captain or staff into darkening a small area of deck, and good luck with that!

It can be a real frustration, being in the middle of the ocean with no other artificial light to be seen from horizon to horizon, and the ship you're on is lit up like a pinball machine!

Once, when our ship was 100% occupied by eclipse chasers, management relented and darkened the top front deck significantly. But I'm sure they were still nervous about liability issues....or maybe just about doing anything a little differently?

Cheers,

Jim

[runner]

I am so aware of the lights on board, my last experience was futile, tho the full moon was the major factor, she is a huge ship and hopefully I can scout out a dark zone, doubtfull, but one never knows....fingers are crossed...Frank

[Chris Schroeder]

Thanks all, I did ask the Captian if they could turn down/off some of the lights, but the best they could do was turn off the sring that of lights that run from stem to stern. All the other lights are on a master switch and they couldn't turn them off because of safety reasons.

[john D]

cool!

[lynntx]

I enjoyed this article very much. Thanks for sharing.

Lynn

[Chris Schroeder]

Thanks John & Lynn.