Friday, November 19, 2021

Lunar eclipse of the "Beaver Moon"

 

The moon, as it looked around 4 am this morning. At the peak of the eclipse, the earth's shadow darkened about 97% of the moon's visible surface.

It was an impressive spectacle, and I'm glad I dragged myself out of bed in the wee hours to observe the eclipse. Fortunately the sky was crystal clear in central Ohio, and the increased darkness around the height of eclipse made the stars shine much more brightly than normal. Selfishly, I was glad that the moon was clearly visible from my backyard, so I didn't have to venture far to see the eclipse.

During the eclipse's peak moments, the sun only illuminated a tiny sliver, and the darkened portion of the moon was cast in a deep reddish-orange hue. This eclipse coincided with November's full moon, which is sometimes known as the "Beaver Moon". Legend has it that this particular phase of the moon coincides with trappers ramping up their efforts to catch beavers. I prefer "Frost Moon", a more accurately descriptive name for November's full moon, which comes at a time of marked seasonal change from fall to winter.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So glad you got to see and photograph this amazing event. My husband and I got up and watched through my canon 18x 50 bins.
Only had iPhone pics though. Your photos are always so beautiful . Thanks for sharing!

lhays said...

Excellent. Your blog and images are always interesting. I got up to photograph it (Northern Kentucky). A cloud shelf moved in just at the start.....and ended at the conclusion of the eclipse. There were holes in the clouds and I did get some images but no chance for a sequence. I delighted in the event....and look forward to the next one in May....with hopefully clear skies....as predicted for this one.