Comments on: Who saw a red moon a-rising?

By: zorronsky

zorronsky — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:45:05 +0000

Historically anyone who’d previously seen what I witnessed last night could never believe that the moon was a disc. The colouring showed a globe! Wow!!

By: Unsilenced

Unsilenced — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:08:40 +0000

Looked great from my front yard. I even took a few photos of it to post in my blog, but they are not nearly as nice as the professional photos people have been posting (would love to blame my consumer-level camera, but astrophotography no doubt involves more skill than I have anyway).
It was just such a lovely sight (although not quite as spectacular as the recent comet visit

By: mick

mick — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:56:56 +0000

That would have been pretty fab Mark.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:52:23 +0000

The Powerhouse terrace was a pretty spiffy place to see it from!

By: Lefty E

Lefty E — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:08:05 +0000

The view from Keating Towers was fantastic.

What blew me away was how damn spherical it looked without all the glare, which makes it so 2-d.

I can see how it was a breakthrough moment for Galileo - the shadow of the earth on the moon must have really given the game away.

By: Mazarine

Mazarine — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:29:04 +0000

Am over the moon about the beautiful red lunar eclipse. And about being surrounded by the sound, over the neighbouring fences, of parents outside with their kids, handing around binoculars. The gasps of breath as the last sliver of silver disappeared. What a special night.

By: Blair

Blair — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:23:04 +0000

Got a nice clear slot in the northeast suburbs of Melbourne which coincided with totality - started to cloud over almost as soon as it was over. Combining the astronomical with the political, I watched it whilst walking the streets doing a pre-election letterbox drop.

By: tim

tim — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:57:13 +0000

Paul and Liam, it’s teh Shakespeare refs what triggered the thoughts for me!

And, I have to say, the feeling ’round our fair capital is that, red moon or no, there’s changes afoot.

By: Youie

Youie — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:55:28 +0000

Sadly, clouds ruined the magic for Perth. Outside I went, time and again, to catch a glimpse, but didn’t get a sighting till it was high in the sky and only half-covered. Bah and humbug.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:54:23 +0000

Dear Liam,
You can always trust Shakespeare to be up to date.
Straight from North’s translation of Plutarch.
I think there’s similar stuff in some of the Crusader chronicles, and, though I might be wrong here, the Venerable Bede. For milleniums we have all been transfixed by blood moons.

By: Hilker

Hilker — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:50:04 +0000

Several of us went to a friend’s place, way out in the rural area, completely free from any light pollution. Not a cloud in sight, we saw the whole thing, while getting pleasantly pissed. Very nice evening.

Better than anything on the idiot box.

By: margo

margo — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:28:26 +0000

People were out of their houses watching. Didn’t stay out for the whole thing, but kept going out. There were whispy clouds, then it was brilliant. Two jets flew under the sight on their way to the airport. What a picture it would have made. It all looked eerie.

By: dj

dj — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:12:40 +0000

We stopped training for five minutes to have a look at it.

By: j_p_z

j_p_z — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:39:22 +0000

“The moon is severe.” I quite like that. “It’s round, like a ball” is wonderful, too. If you put them together, like so…

The moon is severe.
It’s round, like a ball,

you get the beginnings of a lovely little poem, something in the vein of e.e. cummings, perhaps.

Sounds like you’ve got a marvelous budding talent in your family! I hope you’ll encourage her!

By: Liam

Liam — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:14:29 +0000

Paul Burns and Tim, Shakespeare too.

Cicero.
…When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
“These are their reasons; they are natural”;
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate they point upon.
Casca. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may construe things after their own fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Cæsar to the Capitol tomorrow?

(Julius Caesar, I,III,28-36)

By: FDB

FDB — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:14:10 +0000

Robert, that’s odd. Looked tops from Northcote.

Although the one I saw was arisin’, not arising.

By: Graeme

Graeme — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:59:51 +0000

Beautiful, though unlike a couple of years ago, the clouds weren’t swept away at the height of it.

My five y.o. daughter, onto her second lunar eclipse, kept chanting ‘The moon is severe’. I thought she was being poetic, till she explained she meant ‘it’s round, like a ball’. ‘V’s and ‘ph’s got a little muddled in the excitement.

By: Michael D

Michael D — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:42:50 +0000

SE Melbourne not much better Helen.

although I guess we can’t complain too much about this ‘winter’ weather we’re having.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:34:24 +0000

Western subs (Melbourne) were completely clouded over. Disappointed.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 01:19:18 +0000

Dear Tim,
Glad I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Not being over-superstitious, I put it down to a binge-read I did of the Roman and Greek classics about twenty years ago.
By the way, does anybody know what happened in The Bill last night?