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I was looking at the Moon when I was driving home tonight on the freeway. Overcast sky but breathtaking all the same.

Tonight's full moon is a "perigee moon," meaning that if you could see it through the overcast, it would appear up to 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than all full moons through the end of 2010...

You can't see the moon when it puts on its best show -- during a total solar eclipse

To this day, I've never seen a more awesome astronomical event. It is something everyone should witness once.

GOAT

Lunar eclipses are more stunning to me. That moon looks like a ripe orange hanging just a touch away. A real sense of it's three dimensional nature...

Just my preference. Heard the story about Columbus' 4th voyage? He knew a lunar eclipse was coming from an Almanac. As the story goes, he told the natives on San Salvador if they didn't give him food he'd turn the moon red. When it did, they couldn't help him fast enough. At least that's the story.

This picture of a partial solar eclipse I took at sunset gives a great 3D effect since you can see the earth, moon, and sun in one view. Reminds me of the opening of 2001: A Space Oddysey

Cool picture Goat & Au...nice article!

I was on parts of old Atlantis ~ San Salvador ~ when I was 16 hunting for lobsters w/o claws

What an experience!

BANI

Columbus ... saved by the moon

so he was! And lies to save his ass:>)

BANI

I've never been to San Salvador. After doing a quick Google search it looks like an interesting time. Clawless lobsters? Poor buggers LOL

African Lobsters they were called back then...but Rock Lobsters here in:

Thanks for the link, BANI

Checking it out now ....

Cool. Now I know what the B-52's (band) were talking about LOL (they had a song called "Rock Lobster")

I've heard that story as well, but I question its veracity for a couple of reasons. 1) Lunar eclipses are not that rare, (one ot two a year usually take place) and when they occur, they are visible from half the planet, unlike total solar eclipses which are visible only from a thin strip a few miles wide. Therefore it is certain the natives had seen them before and had their own lore to explain them. 2) a complex thought like, "Feed me or I turn the moon red" would be hard to convey without a common language which I doubt had been established given the very limited interactions between the two cultures at that time.

But who knows? It could have happened.

No doubt the natives had seen lunar eclipses. What they probably had never seen was a man who could 'make it happen' at an appointed time (which Columbus knew from Johannes Mller von Knigsberg's astronomical tables and almanac) ....

Like you say .. who knows. Cool story regardless ...

Perhaps Columbus communicated with hand gestures. I've had simple conversations with people around the world using gestures only as I'm sure you have as well.

Wot moon?

Spud lives in a city that is so wet it makes London look like freaking Cairo in direct comparison.

It's totally coming down cats and dawgs atm.

* sigh *

Be Well.

GOAT

This account is from Columbus' letters. It appears he communicated at some level with various natives in that region before landing on San Salvador. Perhaps he had an interpreter on board?

SPUD

No moon for us either.

We're having a once-in-30-years snowstorm here. Projected 6-7" with 4"+ on the ground already. I've been snowboarding down the long hill in front of my house a couple times. Everyone's having a blast. Should stay for 2-3 days. Fun!

We're having a once-in-30-years snowstorm here.

Lucky duck.

Vancouver hasn't seen any snow at all this winter a fact which has got some of the 2010 Winter Olympic folk gobbling down the Tums pretty steady.

Thirty to forty years ago Vancity never had snow free winters but it's becoming an increasingly regular occurrence in the last ten years or so.

No snow angels, no snowball fights, no tobogganing.

* sigh *

Rain is easier to shovel but not nearly as much fun.

Be Well.

Snowing here tonight but I did catch the moon last night and it was pretty impressive...