Heavenly Wonder

Wednesday night was a total eclipse of the moon. It's the first one in four years, and there won't be another one for about that long. What makes a total lunar eclipse so special? Well, it only happens when the moon is full, and of course, when the Earth, Sun and Moon all line up for the eclipse part.



The eclipse started at 7:43 p.m. and was complete by 9:oo p.m. The University here has a research-grade telescope observatory about five miles out of town, and they opened it up for one and all to come and watch the lunar eclipse, far from light pollution.

So, even though it was TWO DEGREES FAHRENHEIT, I bundled up my kiddoes (Mark stayed home with Yvette, we're not complete fools), and took 'em out to the observatory. It was SO beautiful. We were out in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, so you could see all the stars, and the Moon was bright and huge. It was a crystal clear night (maybe that's why it was so cold?), not a cloud anywhere. We got there just as the eclipse began, and stayed until after it was full. I picked up hot chocolate at McDonalds on the way out of town, and I'm glad I did! It were so cold! And not everyone there was dressed for the occasion. A lot of the college kids were there - presumably to pass off a class assignment - in just a regular coat and jeans, no gloves, no hat...shivering like leaves in the wind. Sometimes I feel like we have TOO MUCH gear: hats and mittens and scarves and boots and snow pants coming out of my ears all winter long. But Wednesday night, I was glad. We were there for a little over an hour, and all we got was cold toes.

You didn't really need a telescope to see the eclipse, it was easy to see, so the big telescope in the observatory dome was trained on Saturn. It was cool, you could even see the rings and one of its moons. All of the kids got to climb the ladder and look out of the observatory telescope ("just like Marvin the Martian, huh, Mommy?"), even Eliza, who was scared it was too high. There was a smaller telescope - and by small, I mean, the size of Rambo's rocket launcher - outside of the observatory dome pointed at the moon, so you could get a closer look. It was a neat memory.