As I write this, the Moon is in a beautiful deep eclipse. The shadow of the Earth is causing the full Moon to appear quite dim and a stunning coppery-red color.
The skies are clear and Cygnus is leading the summer constellations to rest as it sets in the West. Meanwhile Orion is rising in the East to usher in the winter group. The Moon is dim enough that the Milky Way is easily visible.
I began watching the eclipse about 2:30 a.m., when it was in partial phase. I love to see how the Moon takes on a distinctly reddish hue during an eclipse. Lunar eclipses are not rare, but this eclipse is quite a good one, fully in the umbra. About the only thing that could have made it better would have been to occur on a weekend, but I guess the astronomical event calendar doesn't pay much heed to our silly human working schedules.
Last night had the usual clouds so I was not even expecting to see anything. I didn't bother to set up a telescope, so the only imaging possible was with a little handheld digital camera. Thus the lousy picture above, which was taken just at the beginning of totality - but it's been fun taking the naked eye approach to enjoying this eclipse anyway.
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