(no subject)

We have a couple inches of snow on the ground. It was cloudy all day. I didn't think it was worth it to go outside and look at the lunar eclipse, at 8:06 local time. But what the heck; these things don't happen every day. I might as well step out and take a look up, just in case.

I'm glad I did. The clouds have gone away, and the air, now winter-clear, isn't scattering back the lights from town or from the particle board factory a mile north of me. The stars were OUT, man, and so was the moon.

Someone told me a moon in total eclipse is red, but this one was a smoky orange. I had the binoculars, and when I looked at the moon through them it had the strangest effect. It was like I was viewing it through a View-Master, one of those old toys which gave you exaggeraged stereoscopic views of things. The moon looked ROUND, and it looked like it was maybe halfway to the sky, if that. Probably because of the shading; almost normal brightness at the "lower" edge, much darker as you looked up across the moon's face. But whatever the cause, for a moment I could sense the crystal spheres and the machinery that turns them.

It was more than worth the cold out there.