More space junk

As one might expect, I was pretty stoked for tonight's big lunar eclipse. These things may be more common than solar eclipses, but they still don't roll around all that often. The next one, in fact, isn't until 2010. But I was still a little flabbergasted by a couple people at the office who apparently had never even thought about the workings of the solar system or ever bothered to look up and were just clueless. One person in particular managed to mix up the eclipse with the moon phases, not understanding that the moon must be full in order for it to be anywhere near Earth's shadow, and this person also asked me if it would be safe to look at, somehow confusing staring at the shaded moon with looking into the sun.

In any case, it was the first cloudless and rain-free day for several, so I had high hopes to get a good view of totality, with the moon hopefully a deep blood-red shade, lit only by the light of all the Earth's simultaneous sunsets and sunrises.

Alas, by the time I got home, the clouds had swept in to obscure the moonrise. Boooo! I spent an hour or so on the roof, with only an occasional glimpse through thin cloud cover. My camera was able to pick up more light than my eyes were, and with a long enough shutter speed even got Saturn and the star Regulus on either side of the moon through the orange clouds. Better than nothing I s'pose. Though I was pretty annoyed when the sky cleared completely after the moon emerged from shadow. Grr.

The clouds also prevented any sighting of possible debris reentry from the rogue US spy satellite that was shot down tonight by a navy missile 130 miles above the Pacific. Not that I know what the orbital track of said debris might have been, but you know, I guy can hope. I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed that the military can launch a missile that can, a mere 3 minutes later, intercept an object the size of a school bus traveling 17,000 mph.

Anyway, hope y'all had a better view of the moon than I did. And may your skies remain free of falling debris.