The eclipsed Moon came up behind the neighbours' roof
Last night's total lunar eclipse was the kind that looks wonderful on a diagram and less wonderful from a back step facing east over a row of houses. Totality ran from about 19:30 to 20:53 by my clock, and the Moon rose in the middle of it, into a sky that was still bright with dusk. So the plan was never to see the whole thing. The plan was to see something.
| Time | Notes |
|---|---|
| 20:05 | Outside with binoculars and a cup of tea. Sky pale blue-grey in the east. Nothing, as expected: the Moon is up somewhere, but not above the roofs. |
| 20:20 | Still nothing. A bright point in the binoculars turns out to be a plane. |
| 20:36 | A faint, rounded, brownish patch just clear of the chimney next door. Not obvious. I only found it by sweeping the binoculars slowly along the ridge tiles. |
| 20:41 | Definitely the Moon. Dull copper, darker at the top edge, sitting in thick low haze. Naked eye: I can see it if I know where to look, and only then. |
| 20:53 | One edge brightens. End of totality. Within a couple of minutes the bright sliver makes the rest of the disc look darker, not lighter. |
| 21:20 | Moon well clear of the roof now, a fat bite still missing. The shadow edge is soft, not a line. |
| 21:56 | Partial phase over. Ordinary full Moon, slightly embarrassed-looking. |
So I saw about seventeen minutes of totality, very low, through the worst of the atmosphere. That is the honest version. It was still worth it. The colour was not the blood red of photographs but something closer to a dark terracotta pot, and I think the haze took a good part of whatever red there was.
The bit I had not expected was the end of totality. When the first sliver of direct sunlight came back, the eye adjusted to it and the shadowed part almost vanished. The copper was there, and then it was not, and it took a few seconds in the binoculars to find it again beside the bright edge.
Next time the Moon will hopefully be higher. If not, I will find a field with a lower eastern horizon than my neighbour's chimney, which should not be difficult.