Total Lunar Eclipse Becomes Total Let Down for Curious Couple

Based on news report of astronomers' finding we join the privileged ones who should be able to watch a total lunar eclipse starting about 12:30 AM Central Time on Tuesday, December 21, 2010. In more than 18 years of marriage, this will be our first time as a couple seeing a lunar eclipse of any kind.

I am both surprised and upbeat that Miss Harriet bubbles with childlike elation over watching the eclipse as if the sight were a multimillion-dollar movie produced by the best in the business of Hollywood. We are plunging into this layman scientific escapade, and that adds to our sense of adventure, or bragging rights of being able to say, “We saw the 2010 total lunar eclipse … as a couple!”

We linger deep into the night hours, awaiting the moment, when Planet Earth squeezes itself between our sun and moon. I think that's what a lunar eclipse is: the earth upstaging the moon as if in a contest for the sun's attention, the earth seducing the sun, “See me? Forget the moon. I'm the prettier one.”

Finally the time comes. I see Miss Harriet replace kitchen outfit with her heavy morning robe. Then over and around that she wraps and buttons her thickest winter coat. She looks rather bulgy, but I look all twisted too, with my winter garbs, including a pair of deteriorating insulated leather gloves.

“You ready?” Miss Harriet asks. “Let's go,” I reply.

And we exit our front door, scurrying into the night of temperature in the teens, wind child factor feeling like single digits. Our sky-ward neck twisting and turning begins, like two silly kids playing hide and seek in a gloomy space.

“You see anything yet?” “Nope. Nothing over here. Nothing there.” “Are we right on the time?”

We even try looks from the backyard. We come up empty still. We enter the house. I check the Internet to confirm the time frame. One website says 1:41 AM Central, not 12:30 AM as we heard on the news.

Miss Harriet and I agree to catch some sleep before round two of our sky exploration. I set the alarm for 1:35 AM, a time that comes in no time. Again we bundle up and step into the cold night to behold a phenomenon magnified solely by its non-existence.

“Disappointed” is not strong enough a word to sum up our doldrums. After some more sleep, I give astronomy one final, feeble try around 4:45 AM. Still nothing...

I remember the news reporter saying, “If you don't see the lunar eclipse tonight, you won't get another chance until 2014...” That's what we did not want … miss out this time. Yet that's exactly our fate.

But why? Is a prediction of an eclipse like a weather forecast, the most imprecise science of our time? Or should we have picked up that $1,000 telescope along with a tripod to stand a chance at seeing this much advertised lunar eclipse?

Which of you actually saw any kind of lunar eclipse in the Central Time Zone? And if you were among the chosen, at what time of night or day did you behold the phenomenon? Did you snap any photos to soothe the wounds of our curiosity?

Perhaps this is really what it feels like to be lunatic, but at least I still have my clothes on, and I'm not standing outside and I am not sky-gazing anymore. ~mogama~