A photo of yesterday’s lunar eclipse, at least it was yesterday here. This was taken at 3 a.m.. I almost missed it. When my alarm went off I looked out of the window and thought, ‘There’s not much moonlight; it must be cloudy.’ Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute….’
Here’s another instance of me making posts based on the theme of this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, which is ‘Silence.’
First up is this shot of a full moon. For me, the night sky always seems silent. What goes on up there is rarely accompanied by any sound that we hear (the recent Michigan meteor notwithstanding). And this was a calm evening with clouds just drifting by, so not even the sound of the wind to disturb things.
When I saw these skydivers I thought of Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical essay “Excelsior! We’re Going to the Moon! Excelsior!” The connection was really nothing more than the title.
In this case, I imagined the captions as “Coming in for landing,” “Whoa, just missed,” and “Let’s go round again.” I bet this is along the lines of how the moon landings were faked!
The reality is these were part of Upolu Airport’s newest/only economic enterprise, B.I.G Skydiving. On this outing, a couple of solo skydivers had already landed. These two were on a tandem skydive, where a paying customer has the much-needed security of being attached to an experienced skydiver.
For more information about B. I. G. Skydiving go to skydivebig.com.
The night sky above the Big Island is often clear and awash with stars. The biggest problem with it is that it occurs when I’m snoring softly (sometimes). I have good intentions to get up and spend time soaking in the stars, but then I roll over and the moment is gone.
I’ve done better during meteor showers. A half hour’s viewing during a good shower invariably yields rewards. But even there I’m torn. This wasn’t a great year for meteors – conflicts with the moon and the weather gods – and I saw almost as many looking through the window, from the comfort of my bed.
However, the impulse remains to do better and thinking about new horizons and what the coming year might hold, a greater regard for the night sky is high on my list.
A full moon rises behind scattered clouds.
We had a partial solar eclipse yesterday afternoon. I thought about going somewhere to see it, but the vog was thick, I didn’t have anything to safely watch it through, and my camera isn’t set up for taking such photos. So I stayed home.
When I realized the eclipse had started, I made a hole in a piece of cardboard and went outside. Sure enough, I was able to project a tiny image of the eclipse onto the front door. Later, when the eclipse was reaching its peak here, with around 70 percent of the sun obscured, I went outside again. I was about to deploy my cardboard pinhole, when I noticed a larger image of the eclipse already showing on the door. It hadn’t been there earlier.
It turned out that a hole on the edge of the roof was perfectly aligned for projecting the image at the peak of the eclipse. A few minutes later, clouds rolled across and the image disappeared. A case of being in the right place at the right time, at least, for that little hole.
Graham's Island 