The Blood Moon Eclipse

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I got to watch a real cosmic event for once last night. So many happen behind intense cloud cover over my home city that I miss most of them. I never saw Halley’s comet, the recent meteorite showers, or a rare look at the Aurora Borealis. I did see Halle Bop and I have watched The International Space Station fly over. I have seen partial eclipses (lunar and solar) but never a full one before. Last night’s lunar eclipse was happening between two and four AM over Manchester but it was a clear sky night so I struggled to stay awake for it, with a clear view of the Moon through my bedroom window. The Blood Red description was an exaggeration. The Moon had a rusty red tinge to it, and looked a little larger than usual. The shadow of the Earth slowly encroached over it over the space of the first hour. A radio presenter was describing the Moon as vanishing from the right hand side but I saw it going from the left and almost from top to bottom. It was a quiet gentle erosion, with a long moonless pause before it reappeared again bit by bit before the next such event occurs in about twenty years. Hopefully I’ll still be around to see it and the skies will be clear again too. Arthur Chappell