Lunar Eclipse

Just before I settled down to my evening's nap I set the alarm for 11:30 PM. I wanted to see the lunar eclipse with the reddish glow. Upon awakening I rushed to the door and threw open the sashes where to my wondering eyes should appear but…..a cloudy sky.

I searched for the moon and there it was, a fuzzy yellow shape about a thumb width (at arms length) above the trees. There appeared to be a bite taken out of it and then it disappeared. I think we are in the area of the US where only about 3% of the people get to witness this event. Much like our AT & T coverage, we’re perpetually in the 3% that doesn’t have any coverage.

I yelled out to Sandi, “It was a doozie.“ By the way ’doozie’ is an astronomical term.

It was coined the last time there was an lunar eclipse on the winter solstice in 1638. In just so happens a Mr. Galilei was under house arrest during the eclipse and so one would think that that he being the great Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher was the one to coin the phrase. But, no, it was his guard exclaiming to Galileo (since he was under house arrest and one would think ‘in the house’) “It’s a doozie!” He was under arrest for blasphemous teachings that he wouldn’t back down from; that being the Sun and not Earth was the center of our universe.


This was cool too even if I don‘t totally understand it:

“Why red?
A quick trip to the Moon provides the answer: Imagine yourself standing on a dusty lunar plain looking up at the sky. Overhead hangs Earth, nightside down, completely hiding the sun behind it. The eclipse is underway. You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it's not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth's circumference, you're seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth's shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.”

To me, this was really fodder for the imagination.

Jim