An interesting train ride home last night. As we would stop the train at the different stations, the conductor would point out to us all the fact that a total eclipse of the moon was going on just to the south and east of our train. It was a strange feeling to be traveling during it. The minute I got home, I tried to take a picture of it. It was quite beautiful, in a brownish sort of way. They say the next one won't occur until 12/21/2010, so I enjoyed it while I could. I walked into my house and my guys were totally oblivious to the event. Uh, was anyone watching the news today? :-)
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In a weird kind of a serendipity thing, just after I wrote this post, I found out that the United States had just successfully launched a missile to destroy a spy satellite, that was due to fall to earth in the next week. The missile struck the satellite at 7:26P Pacific time. I wonder if it was happening, just as I took my picture (not that I could have seen anything, but it's weird to know something so big was going on, when I was taking these photos).
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Photo is, of course,
the moon coming back
to us after the
eclipse occurred.
Click the photo for
a bigger image.
Mornin' Angel! I saw the beginning of the eclipse when I left the office, and called Bob right away to tell him to go outside and look. Then an hour or so later while we were loading packages in the car at Walmart, I made him get out of the truck to look at it again. I got a funny look, and an "I've already seen it." So it was my private eclipse. How can you not want to get outside and look at God's miracle? For FREE!
ReplyDeleteWell said, Cindy, re "God's miracle." That's kind of the attitude I take about eclipses, the general sense of the wondrousness of the universe beyond sitting on the couch watching TV.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy these sorts of things for the awesome spectacle they are illustrating the basic concept of the Earth orbiting the sun and the Moon orbiting the Earth. Sure, I've seen it before, but so what? And they don't happen all that frequently for me to be so blasé about'em. It usually seems as if the weather never cooperates and knowing the next total eclipsde isn't for almost three years, well, I wanted to see something of this one.
I was bummed that the forecast in NJ was for overcast skies late afternoon into evening with possible light snow even (we got a light dusting). I had seen an online forecast which mentioned something about clearing "later," but figured that would be much later after the eclipse was done.
I wandered outside at 8:30 just to check and it was majorly overcast. I could see a generally cloudy glow to denote where the moon was, but there was no chance of actually seeing anything resembling the eclipse. And while I stood there, even the glow disappeared as the clouds thickened more. So I went back inside for the night (I assumed at the time).
Then around 11:00 I popped back out just for the heck of it and was astonished to see crystal clear skies, stars everywhere and a beautiful mostly eclipsed moon just starting to come out of shadow. So I missed the totality, but am so glad I got a good look.
I later thought, "I should have called my friend, Bob." I had reminded him earlier about it even though we both suspected it would be too cloudy to see anything. Honestly, I just kind of assumed he'd at least check for himself at some point or two and would see it. When I caught up with him later in online chat he said he didn't see it---just assumed the weather was not cooperating. But then he said, "That's OK, I've seen'em before."
That surprised me. I mean, this is a guy who even owns his own telescope for occasional star- or at least nearby planet-gazing. I was thrilled that I got to see something (when I was expecting nothing) and here he didn't seem the least bit bothered by not seeing anything when he could have probably seen most of it.
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Angel, I've tried taking moon pics before myself, but I don't think my camera is up to it. Only 3x zoom. I experimented with different settings, but never found any that let the moon show up as anything more than a big dot. So I didn't even bother trying to document the eclipse. Yours came out quite well, though.
Hey guys and gals!
ReplyDeleteYeah, Me too on the fact that this event proves that we live on a planet that is round and not on something flat.
Regarding the picture. The camera would NOT allow me to take the picture just of the moon. But it did let me take the street lights, so I just made sure the moon was in the shot of the streetlights. :-)
We have had clouds here too, but thankfully, they cleared out, for the most part and we could see the moon. I am glad you both got a look at it too. How cool was the fact that the moon was BROWN! lol
The satellite thing made me think of New Frontier...I wonder what DF would write.
ReplyDeleteD.
D: Yeah, New Frontier...we never stray too far from Steely Dan lyrics and the world at large. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd in keeping with the "we never stray far from Steely Dan" theme, here's what Walter Becker may have seen of the eclipse in Hawaii.
ReplyDelete(But mostly I just thought it was an interesting view/perspective.)