Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. It was certainly a long time coming. Maybe it took a lunar eclipse to break the jinx.

posted: 11:41:47 PM  

I took a break from watching the World Series to go outside and watch the evil spirits swallow the Moon. I walked out at about 9:45, when the eclipse was at about 40%—not enough moonlight to read my notebook, but still enough light to cast a shadow.

There is a small playground/dog run/frisbee field on the other side of the next housing cluster. It's sort of away from the houselights, and open. I took my binoculars over there and sat on a kid's swing to wait for totality.

The Moon was high in the sky, which remained clear for ten or twenty minutes. The satellite never looked as three-dimensional as it did with a big circular shadow thrown across it. As totality approached, a bank of patchy clouds blew in, but the seeing was still good. The last sharp shine of solar light squeezed out, to be replaced by the dull glow of a total eclipse. Tonight it was not the brick red glow that I've seen before, but a faint tinge of red.

I headed back to the house to write up the evening.

As I write this now, the cloud cover has blown off. From my front step, a deeper orange-red glow is visible over about four-fifths of the disk, with a clearer white glow along one edge.

And now the clouds have thickened up and it's gone.

posted: 11:08:45 PM