Sep 20, 2010

Red Moon ~ Lunar Eclipse ~ Blood Moon

I am so perplexed. My bed lies right under two great windows where I can gaze out at the moon most of the night. It glides into my view around 1:00 am and slithers out of view around 4:15 am. Sunday, Sept. 19, at 3:00 am I rolled over and saw this outside my window:
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Photo: Stefan Seip, Nasa.gov
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So I've been asking around and nobody saw the Red Moon. I googled it and found out there are times when the moon appears red, certainly, but nobody else was claiming it was red Sept. 19. I finally end up at NASA with this photo which is EXACTLY what I saw and the blurb says it occurred Sept. 19 !! ..... 2005. What are the odds it would occur Sept 19 '05 and again Sept 19, '10? Because it did.
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Nasa says "it's a deep orange cast of a waning gibbous Moon seen very close to the eastern horizon, almost at Autumn Moon." The one in this photo has a "tantalizing lunar 'red flash' at the bottom" which I didn't notice on my Red Moon.
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If you missed my Red Moon, you can catch one on Dec. 21 when we have a total lunar eclipse. It should look red then also.

PS. Is anyone looking at Jupiter tonight? It hasn't been this close since '63 and won't be this close again until 2022.

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