The Wonderment of Nature & Humans

I simply felt compelled to share my experience over the last 24 hours concerning my perceptions of the natural world and the reactions of humanity towards what I personally feel is the awesomeness of our maker.  Let me explain...

The above multiple exposure is clearly of this morning's lunar eclipse that in our part of the world was visible roughly from 6:00 am until one lost sight of the moon due to earth's rotation of ~800 mph at our latitude!  Buckle up!  As many of my close friends and acquaintances are aware, I routinely attend the neighborhood gym prior to reporting to my workplace.  Believe it or not, there is quite an attendance at my hour of departure; numerous patrons both coming and going.  Upon my departure, I noticed a man and woman simply standing at the side of the building gazing westward towards our partially eclipsed moon.  It was refreshing to see and to what would be absolutely no surprise to my wife, I struck up a very brief, but meaningful conversation about our observations.  Many people in pursuit of their hurried lives simply glanced and moved on; others oblivious to the astronomical anomaly, but several others stopped, stood, and stared at the picturesque skygazing opportunity.  At one point, there was upwards of 20 people looking at the western horizon.  I stayed until the moon fell behind a grove of trees that obscured my view; however, only another 5 minutes remained until the moon would fall below the horizon.  Off to coffee and then to work...

I was very disappointed with myself as I had dropped the ball on 2 fronts!  A:  I actually forgot about this celestial syzygy early in the day prior where I could alert some students and...B:  I kind of "blew it off" since I felt quite confident that the morning would dawn cloudy, damp and overcast from a shortwave rotating around the deep upper level low that has been stubborn to leave central O Canada!
But as you can see, the skies cleared quickly following the general 0.25" area-wide rainfall.  Note the front well off the NJ coast...what a progressive wx pattern!

Upon arrival at my workplace, I shared little about what I just experienced...but one co-worker was like a kid in a candy store!  Excitement experienced by adults woefully way too little!  He shared photos of the event and even noted the very shallow ground fog that was able to form in his neighborhood hollow due to the clear skies and overnight rainfall.  Trust me, his photo was FAR BETTER than this...

Then... a tad later and then throughout the day...others with various amounts of excitement shared similar observations of what they had witnessed early this Wednesday morning!  It was refreshing to see!  The graphic below shows that we here in the Harrisburg area were able to see the moon approach the greatest eclipsed state prior to moonset...

Many asked about the color...the red is best explained IMO by the following scenario I both read and listened to over the years...picture yourself on the moon looking back at the earth as the sun slowly disappears behind the earth.  As the sun fades behind the earth, its relentless radiation is still trying to get to the lunar surface.  However, it must bend around and through the earth's atmosphere where the longer reddish colored waves of the visible spectrum are able to continue on their merry way; all the way to the moon and beyond to...wherever...So, as a lunar observer, you are simply witnessing all of the sunrises and sunsets that are occurring on the big blue marble at the time of eclipse maximum.  Red sky at night...red sky in the morning...Simply awe-inspiring...don't cha think?

Sorry this was ex-post facto...but felt that I had to share my experiences from all walks of life today noting they either appreciated, were totally awe inspired, totally unaware of, or could simply take it or leave it...It was just neat to experience!  As will be the Orioles advancing to the World Series...and that is not ex-post facto; this is my fearless forecast for the ALCS!  LET's GO Os!

I'll leave you with one of my favorites...ECLIPSE...from Pink Floyd's 1973 Dark Side of the Moon album ...enjoy...

Smitty

AA:  It was quite a view this early morning; seeing the lunar eclipse and then thinking about all of what has to perfectly align...seeing how people reacted...and reflecting on the awesomeness of unmoved maker (mover)!