All that for nothing!

I took the day off from work, stayed up ALL NIGHT so I could watch the lunar eclipse last night. I had my film camera with the 110mm zoom lens ready, I was even prepared to play around with the exposure, taking lots of pictures to see if I could get something half decent of the eclipse. My biggest decision was whether to go to bed and set my alarm for 4:00AM, or to just stay up all night, then sleep after it was over. Since I'm a night person, I thought it would be easier to stay up all night. I watched tv mostly. AMC had The Bishop's Wife on, I watched about half of that. I watched parts of one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, part of another episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Then when nothing was left on tv to watch, I started reading a book. A romance novel to be specific. I like the author, I've read some of her other stories, but this one was kind of boring. Some of them get me hooked right from the beginning, but not this one. I trudjed along, killing time, and going outside to check on the moon every hour or so.

About 3:00AM, the moon was still in good viewing position, but was partially covered by clouds. I said to myself, "Please have the clouds go away so I can see this." Again at 4:00AM I went outside to check on what might be happening. At this stage, it would only be the prenumbra stage, not much to see, I was more interested in the umbra stage, full coverage of the moon by the earth's shadow. Bright full moon, the clouds had passed by, no shadowing yet that I could see, but some clouds were approaching from the west. Hoping those clouds would all go away before the viewing got good, I went back inside to wait until about 5:00AM when the show would start, back to the book that was not holding my interest. At about 5:00AM, so tired I could probably fall asleep standing up if I wanted to, I went back outside in my jeans and sweatshirt, camera around my neck, hoping for something to photograph.

Clouds! Not just one puffy cloud that would move away, a whole bank of them, with no end to the west. The moon was completely blocked from view, I couldn't even see the glow from it. I had just stayed up all night to see clouds. Looking at the clouds to the west, I decided there was no way the moon was going to peek out for me to get a decent view of the eclipse. I silently trudged back inside, up the stairs, into my apartment, stripped out of my clothes and went to sleep.

The next lunar eclipse is supposed to happen in early February of 2008. That upcoming eclipse will also be viewable from the Americas. Given the time of year, and the typical weather here in the U.S., I'm going to go out on a short limb and say the weather will not co-operate then either. That's the last of the three known lunar eclipses that were expected. I have not heard of when there might be more in the future.

Now I have a fresh roll of film in my camera. I wonder what I should take film pictures of?