Thunderbolt_

A brief summary here: September 2015 - overall a cooler than average autumn month with some notably below average minima. It was however fairly sunny and dry. Days with: Frost: 0 Rain (>1mm): 9 Strong winds (>40 mph gusts): 0 Thunder: 1 Hail: 0 No sun: 3 Snow falling: 0 Snow accumulating: 0 Fog: 1 Temperatures: Highest maxima: 21°C (10th) Lowest maxima: 14°C (14th) Highest minima: 10°C (11th) Lowest minima: 4°C (26th) Mean maxima: 16.80°C Mean minima: 7.50°C Overall mean: 12.15°C - 1.53°C below the 1981-2010 average - coolest September on record Air pressure at 18:00: Highest air pressure: 1037mb (29th) Lowest air pressure: 989mb (16th) Graphs:

A beautiful day today. Pretty much cloudless skies and temperatures quickly responding. It's 18°C already.

it's been a fantastic day today - some scattered fair weather cumulus and a maxima of 19C. This week is turning out to be one of the nicest weeks for some time. My bedroom was stifling too, since it had the sun on it all day.

My time-lapse:

A bit cloudier today, but still feeling fairly decent in the sunny intervals and light winds. Temperature: 15C

Some photos from last night: Here starts the painstaking task of aligning all of these photos and putting them together in a time-lapse. It might take me a while.

04:23 - the top left corner of the Moon is starting to brighten now, as totality ends.

Can't share my pictures until the end of the eclipse. I now have much greater respect for the people who try and photograph these events because I now realise how difficult it actually is.

We're pretty much at the point of the greatest eclipse now. The opposite happens now...

03:11 - totality!

I'm starting to really struggle taking pictures now...

The eclipsed part of the Moon is starting to take on a reddish tinge now.

The shadows casted on the ground are now much less defined. Light levels are most definatelly dropping now.

Alright... who's been snacking on the Moon? Admit it now!

It's 02:07 - the beginning of the partial eclipse! All of the Moon is now within the penumbra and will now begin to move into the Earth's umbral shadow. From here it will all kick off, as the Moon shrinks to nothing before turning a deep red colour.

Yes the darkening is definately noticeable now! We're nearly there!

Is it me or is the top left hand corner of the Moon starting look ever so slightly darker than the rest of it?

It's usually not until near the end of the penumbral stage when the moon will be noticeably dimmer.

It's pretty much 01:12 - the start of the penumbral lunar eclipse. Look out for a very gradual and subtle dimming of the Moon as it enters the Earth's penumbra. Not long until the blood moon appears now!

The hazy high-cloud has finally cleared here, so I can now clearly see the Moon. It's extremely bright tonight. There's also only one hour to go until the penumbral eclipse begins, now...

Me too, which is probably not a good idea when you have two lectures tomorrow, but oh well.

It's bit hazy here too. Hopefully it clears up in the next couple of hours...

Yep, our lunar friend is up there. Since I am attempting a time-lapse of it tonight, this is the first of probably several hundred, to several thousand photos I'll take tonight...

Here are the times for tonight: P1 - Start of the penumbral eclipse - 01:12 U1 - Start of the partial eclipse - 02:07 U2 - Start of the total eclipse - 03:11 GE - Greatest eclipse - 03:47 U3 - End of the total eclipse - 04:23 U4 - End of the partial eclipse - 05:27 P4 - End of the penumbral eclipse - 06:22

Yes a very rare event. If you don't see it tonight, then you will have to wait until January 2019 for the next "normal" total lunar eclipse visible from the UK, and April 2033 for the next supermoon lunar eclipse... I'm getting ever so slightly concerned because some ever-thickening high level cloud has been moving in over the course of this evening. Luckily the penumbral eclipse doesn't start until just after 01:00, so there is plenty of time for it to clear up...