Tuesday, March 06, 2007

The night show

Date: March 4, 2007 (wee hours)
Event: Lunar eclipse (total)

While others captured the phenomenon through images such as this







and






My tiny little phone camera struggled with:

03.26am


04.00am


04.07am

and this

04.25am

Yes, I know this is just a photo of 'blackness' but before you laugh, I HAVE very helpfully drawn two arrows where I (hmm) 'think' the moon was. So chose option a or b, and stare hard at the photo.

Still, it was a good experience. The night/morn was really nippy and I was working on a deadline so the venture involved me dashing out to, and back in from, the terrace, while the full moon lit night gradually became darker.

And since, somewhere in the middle of me very sleepily but valiantly standing on the terrace, I suddenly remembered my cleaner's spooky words re the little banyan tree plant growing out of the wall on one side of the terrace, and all her unsaid, but nonetheless well modulated comments on the spookiness of such plants, came back to haunt me (no pun intended). That explained to a large degree, the urgent need for me to look around wildly and make desperate dashes inside the house, before once again braving the terrace. Still, all in all, the going to sleep at 5.00am on Sunday morning was worth it.

In hindsight, this is how it would have seemed to a random observor:
Female, with short, but wild uncombed hair comes out on the terrace every 20 minutes between 2.00 - 5.00am. Stares at the moon silently for 5-6 minutes, then looks around increasing wildly, before running back inside the house. And while the moon is covered by an ominous shadow, this happens again and again and again......

The first two images taken from the BBC website, and for more such fantastic images, see link