Last night, in case you missed it in the UK was a total lunar ecillipse.
The moon slow went a blood red/orangy colour except for the white bit at the top. My friend Kate Hardy assures me that the white bit is called the diamond ring and that is exactly what it looked like.
Looking through a telescope, you still got the orange effect but the white bit was more a light grey shadow. Kate was one of the few people I could guarantee who would be as excited as I and my dh about this. Like us, she kept going to the window every five minutes to look. However, she obviously have has better vido equipment and did video bits of it. I knew ours wouldn't work...
Normally the moon looks very flat and 2-d in the sky, but last night during ecillipse, it was a definate sphere.
There was a strange light, and it is easy to see why the anceints considered a total lunar ecillipse to be a portent of change. Imagine if you saw such a thing right before battle!
But as I wactch the moon change and saw the cars swishing by on the A69, and the lights on in other houses, I realised how out of tune and out of touch the human race was. Where once this would invoked great panic, or ceremony by all, it was mostly forgotten.
SOmetimes, it is worth taking the time to experiences the wonders of the world.
2 comments:
It was fantastic, wasn't it?
My video is a bit wobbly but it's ok - the photographs didn't work, though. (I've come to the conclusion that I need a decent digital camera with a really good optical zoom.)
Yes, just imagine sights like that before battle! Always makes me think of Shakespeare's Roman plays (Antony & Cleopatria Act IV scene xii, and Julius Caesar Act II scene ii with all the stuff about the fiery warriors in the clouds).
And such a shame that so few people bother - they really don't know what they're missing.
It was cloudy here. We hoped to see the lunar eclipse, but there were a lot of clouds on the horizon. Several neighbors came out to watch; they even had lawn chairs and wine! We were all disappointed, especially my daughters.
Post a Comment