1 or 2 minutes before totality
2 or 3 minutes after totality
30 minutes after totality
August has been a windfall for opportunistic amateur skygazers. Close on the heels of the Perseid meteors, we were treated yesterday to the longest lunar eclipse since the year 2000. The people on the West Coast of the US lucked out in the cosmic ballet, for in these parts, the moon was still sufficiently high up in the sky to be seen from almost anywhere. I awoke when the partial eclipse had just begun outside the window. Dressing hurriedly in the dark, I was able to slip out quietly and drive to a remote unilluminated parking lot about 10 minutes before totality set in. One cannot expect company on these mostly solitary adventures, and so I was surprised to find a gentleman who had come there with his telescope and video camera to escape from the cloudy skies of Millbrae; both of us had picked that lot on a whim. I knew that it wasn’t the best place, but if I had driven any further, I would have missed the pivotal transition.
Note the significantly richer shade of amber in the last picture; that picture is from the middle of the total eclipse phase. The Man in the Moon is more difficult to discern during the eclipse, and the surface is dominated by the Ocean of Storms, the largest of all the desert maria. The imagination runs wild at such times, and one can see anything from an embryo in an egg to the head and neck of a dinosaur in the moon. It boggles my mind to think that this has been happening for thousands of millions of years and that our ancestors must have watched eclipses with fear and curiosity from the mouths of their caves. Like insect wings and fallen leaves preserved in amber across millenia, there is most probably something preserved in our genetic code that predisposes us toward being swayed by celestial events.
The eclipse was special for another reason: it coincided with Raksha Bandhan – an Indian festival which celebrates the bond between brother and sister. A few thousand miles away in Georgia, my sister had set her own alarm clock and had awakened to watch the eclipsed moon swimming low in the West. It is nice that, many years removed from our first frustrated attempts at seeing things in cloudy skies, she is still zany enough to do that sort of thing.
Mirkwood 
This is great. I’ve always intended to spend more time stargazing, but nothing has ever spurred me to looking into it the way that your post will. Thank you for that.
Lovely post. And the photos are gorgeous!
David, I’m glad that my post had that effect. Thanks and welcome to Mirkwood.
Stefanie, thanks for the compliment. These three photos were the best of the lot. There were 15 more which nobody would like to see 🙂 .
Oh Polaris I’m so glad to see these photos, and I love knowing your sister woke up to look at the skies (not to mention the Gentleman From Millbrae!)
I’m glad you’re back, BL. I wondered what the matter was, but am now happy to know that we had temporarily lost you to the charms of Italy!
These photos are beautiful, Polaris. I confess, I’ve never been able to see a man in the moon; I see a buffalo. I love what you wrote about being genetically predisposed to celestial wonderment. If anything binds us humans together, across the borders and the oceans, it is a common reverence for the mystery in the night sky.
Tai, just look up “man in the moon” on Wikipedia. You’ll be amazed at what different cultures have seen in the moon. Curiously enough, my man in the moon looks nothing like the drawings on Wikipedia, which are more or less comical.
My man in the moon has a much darker expression. He evokes in me a response similar to the painting of The Scream by Munch. I don’t exactly feel sorry but I feel startled and sad.