Well, here is one of the pictures I took of the lunar eclipse. My tripod was rickety, it was freezing cold, I couldn't quickly figure out how to set up a self-timer shot to avoid vibration, I didn't have a 300mm telephoto zoom, or a remote control, or a satellite tracking system.
I had been drinking beer.
I'll find another, perhaps better, shot in the morning, Zeus willing. But both of these pics were taken from Avenue A in Manhattan. Not bad...
...
All of that said, today is my friend's birthday, the one who passed away.
Bob is his name, was his name.
I never know which to say.
...
As the earth was passing between the sun and the moon I could see the curvature of the earth as it consumed the moon and I tried to figure out which part of the earth was casting the shadow at the time. It was somewhere out in the vast Pacific ocean, a huge blue curved portion of it. I thought of Hawaii, friends there in Maui. All of that water somehow clinging to the earth, the moon volcano-orange-red.
It is all absurd, and it keeps me from sleep, the immensity and insignificance of these things.
The wonderful spinning significance of it all.
Addendum: What occurred last night was not a Lunar Occultation. I just threw two words together, one meaning "moon" and the other meaning "eclipse", basically. Though Lunar Occultation was occurring simultaneously with the lunar eclipse, this is not what is actually being represented in these pictures. It would more rightly be called Earth Occultation if it was being viewed from a stationary spot from the opposite side of the earth. I invoke poetic license....
