My internal clock went off this morning about 3:15am. Then again at 4:10, then 4:27. I finally decided to get out of bed at 4:42. I walked out onto the front deck to look for the Moon and quickly found it. It was close to complete totality - maybe 7/8ths covered at that time. I went back inside and told Deb to get up, that we were within five minutes of totality. It was completely quiet outside except for the distant sound of sparse traffic on Highway 72 over Chapman mountain. As soon as totality was reached, I went inside to check the time on the "Atomic Clock". The moment I looked, it was 4:51am. I stared at it a few seconds and it changed to 4:52am. That was the time predicted for our area. Damn, those astronomers know their stuff! At about that time, Deb and I heard some dogs or coyotes howling in the distance. Did the eclipse freak them out?We stayed up for about twenty minutes more and watched as the Moon seemed to get darker and darker as it dropped closer to the horizon into the haze filled with the skyglow of Huntsville to the west of us.
Oh by the way, the photo is not one of this eclipse, but it is a photo I took through my 130mm telescope on November 27, 2004 at 8:49pm. I didn't take any photos of this one because of the inconvenient time and position of the eclipsed Moon.
2 comments:
What impresses me most here is that you could wake up Deb at 4:51 AM and anything good would come of it.
Deb likes eclipses and falls back to sleep easier than me!
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