On Wednesday night, we had a fantasic view of a lunar eclipse from our backyard. Recently, we'd been reading about Maria Mitchell, one of the earliest female astronomers, who was into everything celestial. She had a comet named after her and travelled great distances to watch eclipses. In the book, it described the difference between solar and lunar eclipses. So it was interesting to see an eclipse such a short time later. This, I believe, was a solar eclipse; the earth between the moon and the sun. It was quite stunning to watch the reddish looking shadow cover the face of the full moon. The News made quite a big deal of it, and rightly so. Was it equally visible in the northern hemisphere, can anyone tell me?
Logan said, "I wish we were watching it through Jarrad's telescope." His cousin, Jarrad, owns a terrific, high powered telescope that allows you to see the craters of the moon in amazing detail. It's so powerful that if you accidentally try looking at the moon in the night sky without putting a special filter over the lense, it hurts your eyes as if you are looking straight into the sun. (We all found that out through experience). But the unfortunate thing was that we knew Jarrad wouldn't be home looking at it himself. He was helping out at an "Open to the Public" night at his school, showing visitors around. Jarrad's school is a very specialised "Maths & Science" school. We couldn't help smiling him as we thought of him telling people, "This is the astronomy lab, where we study phenomena in the night sky," yet the students weren't home to study the night sky themselves because they were too busy doing school stuff!
This is why we love homeschooling. No need to keep someone else's hours. If there is a meteor shower at midnight and we want to see it, we do. We don't have to consider whether the children will be tired in the morning because they can sleep in.
ReplyDeleteAnswering your comment, the name is pronounced just like Anya. The tilda (squiggly line) over the n makes a "ny" sound in Spanish. I think Sierra likes squiggly lines.
Peace and Laughter,
Cristina
Even though we're in a smaller town, the lights are still too bright for our telescope to be much use. One of these days we're going to pack it up and find somewhere secluded to gaze.
ReplyDeleteHey there! Just found out you were here when looking for you at HSB. I too moved over here, you can find me at:http://tryingtobethechange.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteI'll be checking in!
Tara B(hsmom23boyz)
It's so funny that we were looking at the same eclipse and we were so far away.
ReplyDeleteNo one stayed up very long because we were pretty tired after our long day, but we saw it and it was beautiful on the river.
I have read several blogs about families watching the lunar eclipse and I, too, think it's neat that we were all looking at the same event happening, in different countries and time zones. God's creation at its best! Todd was working and I had been trying to sleep, dozing off and on, when I suddenly was wide awake. I saw it was 3:00 a.m. and wondered if I could see the eclipse (it's often cloudy here at night.) When I looked out the living room window, there it was, huge in the sky! I let out a "Whoa!" I didn't wake the kids I think because in my sleepiness I thought it would make them too tired the next day (my kids usually don't sleep in). I'm a homeschool mom - what was I thinking?! I will regret not waking them for a long, long time as the next lunar eclipse won't be until 2011! You can bet I'll wake them for that one!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad our little packet made it across the Pacific. We always pray for its safe arrival. I'm finally beginning to plan for our school year. Nothing like holding off until the last minute! The weather has been so cool that it seems like fall is here already. Have a terrific week!
Kate
Just stopped in to say hello - again! Hope you guys are doing o.k. How's the book coming along? Have a good weekend1
ReplyDeleteKate