Bye bye moon

[dreamshark]

We are getting a moderately good view of the lunar eclipse, which is now at totality. The sky is hazy enough to obscure all but the brightest stars and the moon is a little fuzzy, but you could definitely see it gradually turning into a big pink grapefruit. 

Comments

[laramie]

I hope you got pictures! (I was asleep).

[dreamshark]

It's not worth trying to take astronomical pictures with an iPhone. The first part was pretty but not extremely dramatic - just the moon turning a dull orange. Richard stayed up until the "end of totality" and said that when the shadow moved off the edge of the moon there was a very dramatic contrast at the edge.

[pameladean]

I forgot about it, but fortunately Eric texted me near totality, and I rushed out, yelling "Lunar Eclipse!" to David on my way outside.

I had a hard time finding the moon -- the Salvation Army store on Nicollet has put up some horrifically bright security lights on at least two sides of its building; the neighbors across the alley have changed the many, many lights on their enormous garage from motion-sensing to Always On and Glaring; and our next-door neighbors to the south have put over their back door an exceedingly bright motion-sensing light that sizzles away every time we walk down our own goddamn back sidewalk and takes way too long to go out.

I had to use the astronomy app Stellarium to find the moon at all, and when David joined me a bit later, he had to do the same with his own astronomy app. I ended up holding up my phone to block out the Salvation Army's assault on the senses, and then the look at the moon was actually quite good. I am always surprised at how things seem to be hazier where you are than in our yard -- it seemed very clear indeed to us.

The power lines in the alley eventually got in the way for me, and had always been in the way for David, who's taller, but we did get plenty of good views of a sulky red moon. What I really like about lunar eclipses is that the moon stops looking like a wafer stuck to a flat ceiling and becomes completely three-dimensional. That part is always very satisfying.

P.

[dreamshark]

"I am always surprised at how things seem to be hazier where you are than in our yard -- it seemed very clear indeed to us."

Probably different definitions of hazy. We had no trouble seeing the moon, but very few stars were visible without binoculars. Even with binoculars we couldn't see the mountains on the moon, but Richard realized later that this was probably because the moon was probably completely covered by the penumbra when we started watching, even though the full umbra was still moving in.

[pameladean]

I've been giving this far more thought than it probably deserves, but it's likely that I attributed some of the effects of haze to the EXTREMELY ANNOYING light pollution produced by neighbors and nearby businesses. I wished I had a BB gun several times.

It also may have cleared up at some point, at least right overhead, since I was able to see quite a few stars there as I went back inside.

P.