Tuesday, December 21, 2010

What Can Eclipse An Eclipse?

So, how important is it to stay up half the night for an event that hasn’t happened in almost 400 years and won’t happen again until 2094? I’m not so sure.


I thought that the news reports said that the eclipse would start at 12:00 and take over an hour to reach the full eclipse but at 12:15 there was no sign that I could see that anything was happening. I figured that I was up anyway, so I might as well stay up and see what it’s all about. A few hands of solitaire or a bit of web surfing would kill the time.

Well, at 12:29 I noted that the moon is getting a bit greyer, probably about 40%.

But. . . I was wrong. Upon checking at 12:49 I could see the edge of the earth’s shadow start to cover the moon, and I could see why they say it will take so long for it to take place. It was going at a snails pace!

At 1:35 I walked up on the hill so I wouldn’t be in the trees that surround the house, and the perspective is much different there. The constellations Orion and the Pleiades were visible, but clouds obscured the big and little dippers. The light cloud cover didn’t cover the eclipse but did provide a dramatic backdrop for it. I saw a ghost ship in the clouds, and the face of an old man waiting for the show.

The night sounds greeted me, the coyotes in the distance, the hoot of an owl, neighbors’ dogs barking, and the screech of an unknown bird, all accompanied by the bump-bump-bump of the gas well pumper just up the road

The cats and dogs joined me and I stood there for a few minutes watching the shadow creep onto the moon. I turned off my flashlight and stood surrounded by purring cats and nuzzling dogs and watched as the sliver of white disappeared from the moon, turning it a burnt orange color.

Was it worth it? I would say yes. Not just for the eclipse itself. It was worth it to catch a bit of the life I don’t experience because I’m usually tucked warmly in my bed at this hour. It was like going to a foreign place by just stepping out my front door. A place that I don’t visit often but when I do it’s always thrilling.

No comments:

Post a Comment