I know that I have probably missed the zeitgeist for last night’s lunar eclipse. People have moved on to politics, record-breaking cricket scores and other such nonsense, and so this is clearly old news.
But just for the record, the clouds did clear, making for a good view of the moon (although it cunningly tied to hide). In fact, the only real issue was the wind, which made long exposures rather difficult, and thus getting a photo required some patience, some perseverance and some ISO twiddling.
Still, I’m relatively happy with this shot, and as documentary evidence of what the event looked like from Cape Town… well, it looked like this.
Job done then, and now back to editing horse photos.
There’s a total lunar eclipse visible over Cape Town (and much of South Africa) this evening, and it’s at a perfectly reasonable time to see, and then still get to bed ahead of your upcoming work week.
tl;dr (how lazy are you?!?) Basically, to see it, you need to look at the moon (dur!) from 7:30pm. And basically, the moon will be in the East.
A total lunar eclipse happens when the moon is in the shadow of the earth:
Here’s all the information you need for the timings of the various stages of the phenomenon from the Mother City:
Step 2 “, Rising, Moonrise, Rising” seems a bit repetitive, but I promise that I’ve checked and the timings are all accurate – and it could be spectacular. You don’t need any eye protection – it’s just moonlight – and it will be perfectly visible without any binoculars or similar (although take some along if you want to).
Last night would have been absolutely perfect, but it’s a bit cloudy and windy out today (I’m writing this at lunchtime). Still, as we know, weather stuff can and does change very quickly here, so it might all be ok, or it might be just rather frustrating. Remember that if it is the latter, you’re not alone…
So hold thumbs, cross fingers, pray to your given deity or just wrap up warmly, pop out at half seven and have a look.
Have fun out there! And please share this post so no-one misses out.
I mean it. I’ve looked at the audience that I know this blog has, and I can’t see anything but derision and incredulity coming my way for sharing this. I know that already a lot of people don’t go for the music posts I put on here (but MMIRIM), and even more people won’t like this song. Perhaps even people who don’t read this blog. In fact, almost certainly people who don’t read this blog. Many people.
They – Visages from Toulouse, Strategy from Salford (shame) – won’t mind. We’re all well out of their target audience.
Because it’s niche, it’s underground; it’s not usually even my sort of thing, but I heard it at just the right time and in just the right mood for it to make its mark. But it’s really very good.
It’s deep and bassy. It’s dark and brooding and sinister and threatening. You can only guess what sort of mood I was in. (I mean, the adjectives are all there.)
In fact, it wouldn’t have even made it onto the blog were it not for one particular line which I had to triple listen to just to make sure I had got it right. Because I thought I had heard all the insults there were to hear. People seem to love to tell me them in emails, comments, on social media and in person. I am insult magnetic. But there is always room for new blood in the insult game. And this one was full of fresh plasma and red cells. Because from about 3:56 in (and please pardon the language), I think he’s saying:
Go with the flow, yeah I wrote this one On an old iPhone with a broken screen Think you’re gonna try test man with a verse like that You’re a fucking aubergine.
I mean, look, it scans. It somehow works (it’s mainly thanks to the drawn out tri-syllabic eggplant reference), but still… Is that really the best the he could come up with? Or is this characteristic – common, even – as the sort of diss what the yoof is frowing down these days?
Wow. Specific vegetables* as slights and slurs now? Really? Well, just bring it on, you bloomin’ heirloom tomatoes!
*technically, aubergines, fucking ones or otherwise, are berries, but: “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.”
Many people have been in touch to ask why exactly there is an eclipse this evening. It’s really not too complicated and I’m happy to explain it to you.
‘Cos I can do Science, me.
Simply, a turtle lunar eclipse is when a really big turtle moves between the sun and the moon and casts its shadow across the lunar surface:
You can recreate this at home on a smaller scale by using a torch as the sun, a ping pong ball as the moon and a cockroach as the turtle.
Basically, if you’re in Cape Town, you don’t want to hear this.
It’s not looking good.
Windguru has “heavy, low cloud forecast until 11pm”.
Flowx has “overcast conditions throughout Friday and into Saturday”.
Accuweather has “partly to mostly cloudy”.
