Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Sunday, September 27, 2015

I did get to see the eclipse after all

Reddit user Bluerainbowsanddrain (Public Domain photo from Wikipedia)
Although I came back in once we reached totality because, frankly, I got spooked by a skunk. See, I live near a reservoir and its associated marsh, and we've got raccoons, muskrats, all sorts of animals. So I had set up a chair and was watching the moon, which was about a quarter obscured when I began, with binoculars [which I did not recall having them in a pack that came with a tiny flashlight, a compass, and a pen knife, but that's so cool], and I hear something. I look and about 10 feet in front of me a HUGE skunk came by, and I was very, very quiet. It slipped up by the neighbouring building and then across the parking lot. I continued and watched until the dragon had eaten every bit of the moon, made a couple of tweets, and then headed inside. It was pretty hazy towards the total eclipse peak, and hard to see the moon with much clarity even through the binoculars. But I got some lovely views prior to that. I wish I could have actually taken a decent picture--my cell phone doesn't do much of anything, and I have a very basic little digital camera that isn't much better, in terms of photographing moving celestial objects. I even tried to take a shot with my phone through the binoculars, to no avail. Ah, well. Hopefully you got to see it, too. I went out again a couple of minutes ago and the moon is a dark blood red, but is obscured by clouds so it's really hard to see. Still, it was nice to see one; I haven't in quite awhile. And I'm totally psyched for our total solar eclipse in two years. Yay!

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