The Eclipse

I have neither the talent nor the style to describe an eclipse like Annie Dillard does in her essay Total Eclipse. (You can read about the essay here and here.) But I did not want to miss a chance. So I set the alarm for 5:30 AM and kept a camera handy while going to sleep on Saturday night. Up I was at 5:40 AM sharp, after only one snooze. I trotted to the terrace of my building and intuitively opened the door on my left hoping it to be the right direction. And there it was - a small white beautiful crescent strip. You could not have told it was not a crescent moon if you did not know of the eclipse.

I tried taking a few pictures but the strength of my camera falls significantly short when it comes to taking pictures of distant objects like moon, not to mention my own limited knowledge of photography to handle such situations. The night was cloudless, without much haze and a building shielded the ambient light giving good view of the changing moon. I was able to spot only one well known landmark, (!) the big dipper. I also saw a small shooting star and a faint satelitte that quickly vanished behind some stray clouds. And even though the afternoons have started becomig characteristically warm, the night was nippy enough to warrant folded hands.

The eclipse proceeded at its normal pace, allowing enough time to the marooned Christopher Columbus to extract food and help from the scared natives.

The light on the terrace started increasing slowly as the shadows moved and larger portions of moon became visible.

The opposite side of the sky was now showing red-orange lining and the birds had started chirping. I was still struggling with the camera - trying to adjust the zoom, keeping my hand steady to not spoil the picture, trying to find a good platform, playing with various controls, trying to capture something more than a blurb....

Now the moon had become much bigger and more birds were awake. A crow sat on the water tower of the next buildling and the camera flash scared it! At last, all of the moon was out of the inky shadows. The opposite side was better lit now and the sun would soon make its way in to the world soon.