The Lunar Elipse

I woke up earlier than usual this Saturday morning.

The moonlight streaming through my window at 4:30am was intense.

Normally, it's so dark in my yard that I have trouble waking in the morning.  My window faces south, but light from the sun and the moon are filtered through a grove of evergreens, planted years ago by a legendary tree-lover who recently passed away.

I leave the curtains in my bedroom open so it's easier for me to wake up.  Not to worry, we have no 2-legged neighbors out here on the beach in rural northwestern Minnesota.   Just the deer, an occasional moose, bear and wolf - and lots of birds.

The moonlight was so bright - I had to wonder:   did something trip the motion detector lights outside my window?

No, there was nothing artificial about it.   The light was lunar.

Then I remembered - there was an eclipse last night... or was it this morning?  I should have paid more attention when I heard the story on the news.  At the time, I had no intention of getting up and going outside to witness it.

What I did remember from the news last night - was the weather forecast:  overnight temperatures in the teens.

No, I had no plans to get up early on a Saturday morning and go out in the cold to watch the moon.  Not gonna do it.  No way.

But I couldn't get back to sleep.   So I got up and went to my trusty MacBook Pro to watch the eclipse, on-line.

Wouldn't ya know, I was up too early.  The eclipse isn't going to start until 6:45am.  I looked at my thermometer:  5º F.  No, I'm not going outside to watch the eclipse.

I fixed a pot of coffee and went back to my computer. 

My resolve started vacillating when I hit on a posting on Weather.com:  "Saturday's eclipsed moon may look unusually huge to the North Americans who can see it, due to the "moon illusion." It's not that the moon gets bigger when it's near the horizon; it's just that our brain is programmed to perceive sky phenomena differently depending on whether they're overhead or lower down in the sky."

Okay, now I gotta do it.

I put on my coat, grabbed my camera and headed out the door, drawn by the urge to experience the "moon illusion" during an eclipse.

I spotted the moon in the northwestern sky - the eclipse had started.  To get a clear view, I had to walk  out of the woods and down my driveway to the main road.  Along the way, I heard the little Great-horned Owl who shares my yard, announcing his territory.   Who-who who-whooo.

Despite the bone-chilling cold, the experience - the eclipse, the illusion and the owl - was well worth the effort.

lunar eclipse in northwestern Minnesota