Gary Emerson wrote:

     During the recent lunar eclipse, I took about 43 CCD images
of the moon during totallity.  On one of these images, taken around 05:03 
UT, a relatively bright spot appears in southern Mare Fecunditatis.  I will
get a more exact time to you soon.  Do you know of any high quality video
images of this area around this time?

Enclose are two frames of this image.  The first is of the entire moon taken
with a #25 red filter and a .3 second exposure.  The lens is a 30cm focal
length F4.0.  The second image is an enlargement of the spot area.

Gary Emerson   

David:  The CCD image that I sent you a few days ago was taken at: 05:03:18
U.T. and is a .3 second exposure.  I'm also enclosing a little sheet that I
did on photometry of the eclipsed moon.

Gary  
_____________________________________________________________________

From: Costantino Sigismondi [Sigismondi@icra.it]
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 11:31 AM

Dear Prof. Dunham,

I am very pleased to know that you and your group were interested in
our paper on lunar impacts.

About the observation done in Padua during the lunar eclipse:

I observed the Moon eclipsed with a small binoculars 8x21 behind a 
(transparent) glass door. I was bringing the binoculars by hands. I 
reported in my notes the hour and the visual magnitude estimated for 
the event: ~6 local time (it means about 5 UT) and visual 
magnitude ~4.5 -- 5. 

I've not reported on my notes the position of the event within the 
Moon's disk, but I remember (now, 5 months later) it was near the 
center (that is the same to say near the lower border, given the 
small magnification of 8x used for this observation) of the Moon. 

If we consider the image of Gary Emerson: the bright spot appears 
near the west edge of the Moon's disk, in Padua at that time the 
Moon was quite setting, and the west edge was rotated quite 
downwards. Consequently the position of the spot of the CCD frame 
can be, in my opinion, compatible with my observation. 

The event lasted about one second.

It is remarkable that the bright spot appears in a region at low 
albedo as the Mare Fecunditatis, "a posteriori" it is a very good 
condition for the observation with the naked eye. 

I wonder that among 43 CCD images of Gary Emerson (of 0.3 seconds of
integration), he took exactly the instant of the impact.

(But why not!)

What about the visual magnitude of that bright spot?

We would be very glad if you put this e-mail and our paper 
astro-ph 0006210 in your Web site as a reference, and also if you 
include ours e-mail addresses in your mailing list. 

Best Regards,

Costantino Sigismondi

ICRA
International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics
Universita' La Sapienza, P.le Aldo Moro 5, Rome, Italy.
_________________________________________________________

Tony Cook recorded the eclipse with a camcorder near
Washington, DC but he could not find any flash at the
time given by Emerson.  However, he said that his
recording might not have been sensitive enough to show
it.  There still may be other video recordings of the event.

David Dunham, 2000 June 21