I fiddled around inside for a while and did not head out until about 0430 or so, after the Earth’s umbra had begun to encroach upon the moon’s disk. It looked like someone had taken a bite out of a giant Moonpie! Since the moon was heading down in the west, I grabbed a chair from the back and set myself up between the car and the truck in the front to watch the show with my 1x eyes and Pentax 10x50 binoculars. The outside temperature was around 55° F (~13° C), with a bit of a wind that would send a chill through you from time to time. But I was committed for at least a little while as I wished to see its full phase get underway. The moon would eventually set with the eclipse still in progress from our region.
As the umbra marched onward across the lunar disk I could see some ruddiness appear in the dark portion of the moon’s surface. The more of its surface that became engulfed in our central shadow, the deeper and more prominent the reddish cast became. It was a curious and beautiful process to witness. In the meantime, Mary had awoken and made her way downstairs and was standing at the front door. She readied herself and came out to share in the wonder of the moment.
The tendrils of high thin clouds gave the moon a curdled appearance as the central shadow slowly inched across the lunar surface. Eventually these clouds cleared out, leaving us an unobstructed view. There were numerous stars surrounding the moon, in eastern Aries through the binoculars, and I identified the one that in reality is the planet Uranus. It was a very noticeable stellar point shining at mag 5.6. The eclipse reached its full phase around 0516 hours with the disk now being an eerie and very obvious ruddy disk hanging in the lower western sky. As I was watching the lunar disk through the binoculars, a meteor (about 4th mag) passed through the field heading west, like a single bottle rocked fired off in celebration of the event.
In addition, I also notice the Mary retreated back to the warmth of the house, while I stayed with it a bit longer before heading inside. I did pop back out periodically to take more looks at the spooky looking moon. As we approached maximum of totality (0559 hours), the disk took on a decided orange tone, and looked like a perfect round Halloween pumpkin suspended low in the western sky. It was by now nearly behind our neighbor’s rooftop across the street. The eastern sky was showing early signs of the coming dawn. Overall the moon, while still a gorgeous eerie disk was fading as it sank deeper, its glow muted by the thicker airmass and brightening of the sky. My last look came about 0610 hours as it was a now a ghostly apparition barely above the rooftop across the street. I bid it farewell and headed back to my recliner, with memories of a beautiful lunar eclipse freshly implanted in my mind.
