Early this morning, my husband woke me up around 4:45 a.m. to tell me the skies were clear and he was going out to capture some pictures of the Lunar Eclipse, a.k.a., the “Blood Moon”.
I groggily got out of bed and peered through our bedroom window’s curtains to see the moon drifting through the foggy morning sky, a sliver of bright light outlining it and a slight reddish-orangish smudge over it. I went back to bed while he gathered his scope and camera and headed out to capture the event.
I woke the kids up a little after 6 and we all went outside to see it together. It was a fun way to start the morning, standing on our driveway together in the cool but comfortable early morning air, looking up into the star-lit sky and witnessing something unique and truly amazing when you stop and really think about it. They had a very early science lesson this morning that they’ll hopefully remember for a while.
Here is a good explanation of what a “Blood Moon” is with a visual graphic.
My husband explains it much better than me but basically, the moon and sun are directly 180 degrees in front of each other with the earth in between, the earth’s shadow eclipsing the moon.
When you look at a Blood Moon, you are seeing all the earth’s sunrises and sunsets refracted onto the moon. So I told the kids this morning that they can tell everyone at school that they saw all the earth’s sunrises and sunsets this morning on the moon.
