Chasing the Moon

This morning, I, like many others, was excited to see if I could catch a glimpse of the "Blood Moon". I saw the very beginning of the eclipse out my window when I happened to wake up at 4 a.m. - stirred by my twin toddlers talking in the next room.  I looked out my window again when I got up at 6 and didn't see it. Thinking I had missed the the spectacle, I resumed my normal routine. I sleepily climbed on my bike at 6:30, headed down the driveway and was excited to see the moon staring through the trees back at me. I raced around the corner to the lake where I could see across for a better view and stopped a moment to take it in. I knew time was short as the eclipse was ending and the moon was setting. So I chased it. As it dipped lower and lower on the horizon, obscured in the valleys and by the trees, I peddled harder and harder to reach the tops of hills and to 'lookouts' that I hoped would offer a better view. As the sun rose in the east and the moon set to the west, my last glimpse saw the reemerging moon setting in a beautiful field of pink lilac. It was amazing to see it opposite the sunrise. When I reached my last lookout hoping for a final view, it was gone.

From NPR on "Blood Moon": http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/07/354282155/blood-moon-eclipse-to-be-visible-throughout-u-s

This second of four total lunar eclipses for 2014 and 2015 is called a tetrad. The final two in the series will occur on April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015.

The U.S. Naval Observatory has a handy calculator to let you know exactly when to look up at your location.