Eclipse? What eclipse..?

Well, yet again the Cumbrian weather thwarted our attempts to see and photograph something cool going on “up there”. There was a partial eclipse of the Moon last night, and after the sky had spent all afternoon gradually clearing, more and more precious blue appearing every minute, we had high hopes of seeing the eclipse. So out of town we – that’s Carol and I – went, and decided, after some discussion and deliberation, to just plonk ourselves in a lay-by just outside Kendal with a clear view to the south east.There was more than a little cloud, but the sky did appear to be clearing still, and as other options considered just couldn’t guarantee anything better we decided to set up our cameras and telescope where we were and cross our fingers. I know, astronomers do that a lot…

By 8.15pm, with quarter of an hour remaining until the Moon – already in eclipse – rose, this was our view…

…and that looked promising! Hints of clear sky on the horizon, through which, we hoped, the Moon would peek…

But it wasn’t to be. At the maximum of the eclipse, around 9.10pm, this was our view…

…so no, we didn’t see the eclipse. Instead we tortured ourselves with looking other people’s pictures of it on our phones, trawling Twitter and Facebook for images taken by people in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. And from what we saw last night, and from what I’ve seen this morning, it actually looks like the eclipse was quite impressive after all. If we’d had a clear sky we’d have seen something quite lovely, I think…

Oh well, I’m telling myself that every “thing” we miss “Up there” for the next few months is a Credit Slip we can cash in for a beautifully clear night when Comet ISON is in the sky later in the year. That’s how it works, right? Right?