Total Lunar eclipse -right now.

Ridgerunner

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I went out and looked just after 11:00 central standard time, it was straight overhead. Totally round. No clouds for a change. I was surprised at how small it looked, it was supposed to be pretty close so it should have looked bigger. That was a weird color too, red and I guess gray mottled. Definitely different.
 

digitS'

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I would say that here the moon looked like a tennis ball batted high up into the haze.

The local advantage was that the day-long light rain had stopped and the temperature had just fallen to the freezing point.

I hadn't realized that the moonlight above the clouds was hiding starlight so well. The stars, especially to the south, slowly made their appearance. At first, it seemed that I was imagining that and couldn't try to see their dim light but had to relax. By the full eclipse, the southern sky looked almost clear ... but only in that clouds had disappeared. The stars were far from being bright.

The moon during an eclipse has never looks very blood-like to me. It might look that way in some locations, I can't be in two locations at once and probably have lived in this one far too long ;). Solar eclipses are very dramatic but looking at them is difficult and dangerous and not to be done in a casual way. The changes in immediate environment, appearance to us is not just the subtle fading of clouds.

Steve
 

digitS'

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Another advantage ...

The western horizon is clear this morning.

The setting moon is huge and bright, bright!

Steve
 

Ridgerunner

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That is a good point, Steve. I'm used to seeing lunar eclipses out where light pollution is greatly reduced. Here in suburbia there is a lot of light pollution to deal with. On a clear night I can see the brightest stars but only the brightest. Light pollution probably affected how it looked to me.
 

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