The Blood Moon

A Total Report

Howdy, Folks!

Who’s ready for a report? Tuesday’s total Lunar eclipse was cold, stunning, eerie, and had a dawn surprise.

Here’s a photo I snapped, using my cell phone and 102mm refractor telescope.

Cool, right? Fridays are for Blind Astronomy, so here’s a quick alt-text description of the photo.

Photo Description

The full moon glows a deep orange in total eclipse. Darker splotches appear on the surface, vast plains of cooled lava once thought to be lunar oceans. The background is dark gray, tinged with blue, and three stars shine. Tree branches extend across the lower half of the photo. They look like an outstretched hand, ready to catch the orange ball that’s the moon.

Land of Shadows - The Eclipse Story

There was a strange noise in my room. What was it? Oh, RIGHT. The alarm clock! (I should start getting up at five am. It would take the surprise away.) I looked out the window, and there she was.

The moon was almost fully eclipsed, glowing like a cosmic ginger snap cookie in the sky. I rushed outside, set up a few telescopes, and started to observe.

What’s an Eclipse?

Usually everything stays out of the way, but every once in a while, the Earth blocks the light of the Sun from falling on the Moon.

The Moon goes mostly dark as it moves into the shadow of the Earth. However, Earth’s atmosphere refracts (bends) some sunlight, and instead of going completely black, the Moon is bathed in a dim red glow. Depending on the air on this planet, the red varies from a rusty orange to a deep strawberry. People like to call it the Blood Moon, and indeed, it looks spooky. Something is off in the sky. (Although it doesn’t look like it’s bleeding.)

This eclipse was deep orange, tinged with a definite red. It was beautiful!

Picturing a Shadow

My blind friends tell me the concept of a shadow is puzzling. I’ve hatched an idea on how to explain an eclipse using water. Let me know if this makes sense.

Go to the kitchen sink, and turn on the tap so it’s just on the cool side of room temperature. Make a fist with your left hand, and use it to block the stream halfway down.

The water represents sunlight. Your fist is the Earth, blocking the Sun.

Keeping your left hand in a fist, stick your right index finger (representing the moon) about a hand’s width under your left fist. This is in the “shadow” of the water.

Some water is getting by, though, and this would be the light that’s refracted, or bent, through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Fiddle around with the water temperature, until your fist is warming the water slightly.

The cold water from the tap is like the white sunlight.

The slightly warmer water in the “shadow” of your fist is the light bent through the atmosphere, colored from humidity, dust, pollution, etc. It’s reddish.

Again, your index finger of the right hand is the moon, moving through the shadow.

Does that work? Let me know in the comments. I was trying it myself.

Colors

The “regular” moon is a pearly white, splotched with slightly darker grays. As it enters the penumbra, the outer part of Earth’s shadow, the leading edge of the Moon turns dark gray, mostly colorless. Next is the umbra, the inner part of the shadow. This is where the sunlight is refracted through the atmosphere, and has that reddish glow. The whole moon eventually moves into the umbra, and then it reverses the process.

Unlike a solar eclipse, which lasts mere minutes, this one took a good three and a half hours.

It reminded me of slowly dipping a vanilla wafer cookie into a strawberry milkshake. Through a telescope, I could watch the shadow of the Earth creep across the lunar surface. It was like an artificial sunset. The gray of the penumbra is a delicate, rare tint. I’d describe it as ashen, or light gray.

As the moon dimmed, the stars of the background constellation Pisces begin to glimmer.

Don’t Text and Stargaze

The hour before the dawn was chilly, but I hopped around, looking at the spectacle with an 80 mm and 102 mm telescope, and two pairs of binoculars, one magnifying two times, and another ten.

Oh it was neat. It looked like a giant orange balloon. The sky started to brighten behind me over the mountain as the sun begin to think of getting out of bed. The western sky behind the moon started to lighten as well, turning a deep blue gray.

I paced around, taking pictures with my cell phone, and admiring the sight.

Near dawn, with the sky mostly light, the moon was mostly set. I wandered to the front yard to get a better view. About to look down at my phone to text dad a photo, something made me stop and keep looking.

Suddenly, a tiny point of light appeared in the sky, just below the moon. It rapidly brightened, flashed a brilliant green white as it fell, and then faded out.

It was a fireball! A rare meteor, probably the size of a pebble instead of the usual sand grain. Right by the eclipsed moon!

And to think - I was almost texting.

Sunrise on Bear Hill

My hiking boots marched briskly through the dewy grass. The eastern sky was bright, and the moon, still eclipsed, hung dim in the west, immersed in a wash of blue and pink.

I made it to the top of Bear Hill. There in the distance were the blue ridge mountains, and the twin “Peaks of Otter.”

Lights in the valley still glittered from a long night in Lynchburg.

The moon was sinking towards Sharptop mountain, barely visible in binoculars. The orange balloon was fading in the dawn.

“Oh no.” I saw a UFO. A tiny point of light moved north.

“I really wish I hadn’t seen that.” (Everyone would think I’d finally cracked.)

Then the airplane turned west. Whew!

I sat and admired the breaking day. Oh, what a morning!

Treasures from Earth

It’s Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto Number 2 in F Major, BWV 1047. Note the “Fast - Slow - Fast” format of the three movements, common in the Baroque style.

Enjoy this rousing performance by the Netherlands Bach Society, and see ya Monday!