And if you live in the Western Hemisphere, don't miss tomorrow's winter solstice (7:22 p.m. EST ) full moon eclipse which will reach totality at (2:41 a.m. EST - 11:41 p.m. PST). It's a very rare event. The last time these three events occurred simultaneously was over four centuries ago.
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I've seen three different years given so far for the last time this confluence happened. I hope it is because NASA provides different dates depending on geography (as a function of which the dates clearly will differ) and only the journalists are sloppy, as opposed to NASA Itself being sloppy. NASA Itself has always been the Federal Program To Love and my faith in all other things is shaky enough.
Anyway, local forecasts are for clouds and rain, so the wild dancing and bonfires will have to happen in Nevada, where they belong anyway.
Me, too. 80% cloud cover forecast. I see it is going to be snowing in Carson City. It's going to be one of those long nights, I guess.
(Ha ha. Really.)
Don... dunno know which date is accurate. All I know is that everyone agrees it was a long time ago.
Roy... someone always has to say it. Might as well be you.
As for the visibility...at the moment it's wonderfully clear here in Nevada. I went outside to say hello to the moon, tonight surrounded by a lovely blue ring, but tomorrow night, The Night, I will be in cloudy cloudy Oregon... sigh. We generally hit the cloud bank just past Susanville and usually don't see the sky again until we get near Susanville on the way home. Just my luck. Anyway, tomorrow night I still will go outside and say hello to the moon. It's our thing, the moon and I.
I wanted to take pictures but the clouds discouraged my attempts to do so without the tripod I left behind at the former residence. Here is what I wrote instead, wasted at Facebook:
"The moon is occulted now, the thin trailings of the day's rainclouds veiling her russet face, dark but for sunlight passing through a complete circle of far away sunsets. A disquieting sight, except that I know she will soon be bright again."
I misused occulted but who cares.
Last night on the moon the Earth could be seen moving with its usual ponderous authority to block out the sun, whose fire tore around the Earth disk, winked out, and for a good while left the Moonlings in stark, dark terror. Their prayers were for the probable to continue being probable, for the Earth to keep moving, for the Sun to emerge, and for the unthinkable to stay hidden in the unlikely forest of night.
Up here in Canada on Tuesday the 21st of December the sky was blanketed in cloud. I slept through the eclipse which was wonderful because I haven't been sleeping much with this cold....I feel a little more balanced today:)
Don, Roy, Kimberlee...
ARG! We had a perfectly clear sky here in Nevada and I missed the whole thing. I was fixed on the idea it was Tuesday night. Had I been online at all yesterday I would have read the gazillion articles posted about it but no.... oh the irony! Well at least I have your words. Thanks. In fact, they are better. Full moon full lunar eclipse solstices now join the sloths in infamy. Who needs em?! Now I must go to cloudy cloudy Oregon where, tonight, I will look at photos of the eclipse.
Hey Roy! That's good. Epipherama is five weeks behind! Write more!
Oregon. Ha! Imagine if the seat of civilization had been there instead of Ancient Greece or Rome or Egypt--we never would have discovered astronomy because of the damn cloud cover.
Don't feel bad about the oversight. It's not unlike my interview with the Army Security Agency after having passed their I.Q. test (apparently I spelled my name correctly)--they said be at the office downtown at 7:00 A.M. sharp, and I thought they meant get drunk the night before and sleep until eleven.
Anyway, suffice it to say for one brief, exciting moment, the sun moon and Earth fell into place like three more tumblers in the vault of heaven. Click, click, click, as the thief in the darkest of nights with quickened pulse pressed his ear against the door . . .
Roy.... your words offer cold comfort but it's all the comfort I'll get on this one. Now, I have to wait hundreds of years for the next Big Event. That's a long time to sit on the stool in the corner with a dunce cap on but hey! I've done it before and ... oh yah... I'll do it again. In the meantime, write damn it. Don's right. Epipherama is languishing. I need a refill. Did the flux thingamegig just gong again? What happened to the moon? Where's Laslo?
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