Lunar Eclipse
... why do these things always happen in the middle of the night ...
Oh! ... guess it does help seeing the eclipse of the moon if it is dark out ... (-;
Lunar Eclipse of December 2011
On December 10, 2011 in the wee hours of the morning, just before dawn, there was a total lunar eclipse which was visible in whole or part by most of North America, Oceania, and Eastern Asia.
I got up at O'god O'clock in the morning ..ummm.. make that O'dark-thirty - 4:30 A.M.[PST] to be exact - kicked started the coffee pot, donned 17 layers of cold-weather gear (hey! let me tell you - it's damn cold in the High Sierras in the middle of the night in the middle of the winter!) and headed off to see the eclipse. I drove 6-7 miles out into the middle of the valley to be far away from the lights and have a clear shot at the moon and eclipse.
The night sky was clear, and cold! and the moon did not disappoint! The moon hung just above the eastern ridge of the Sierra Nevada with a scattering of nearby stars that became more visible as the bright light of the moon was dimmed by growing shadow of the earth. The close proximity of the moon to horizon gave a slight reddish glow to the eclipse.
My camera and I shot for about 45 minutes before both the camera and my fingers on my right hand froze-up! Shortly after that the moon slipped behind the ridge. I drove up to the top of the grade but there were enough clouds on the other side of the pass that the last half of the eclipse was hidden.
This was the second total eclipse of the moon in 2011, the earlier 2011 eclipse was June 15th and not visible in the western hemisphere. However for the western world, this was the second viewable total eclipse of moon in the past year as December 21, 2010 gave us a spectacular Winter Soltice Eclipse. The December 10th eclipse is the last total lunar eclipse until April 15, 2014, which should be visible in the Americas and probably far eastern Asia, and another on October 8th. There will be five partial eclipses between now and April 2014.
I will be glad when the 2014 eclipses arrive ... they are still going to happen in the middle of the night, but at least they won't be in the dead of winter!
