Last night was the nearly worldwide lunar eclipse. I wasn't sure if it would be visible in our area because of the snow storm we had late in the afternoon. However, by the time I went to walk the dog there were only some wispy clouds moving in a light wind.
The eclipse was spectacular. The left lower edge of the moon was getting shadowy and the whole moon was turning reddish. Just as advertised I could see Saturn and the star Regulus, although I honestly wasn't sure which was which.
Throughout the walk I could follow the moon coming in and out of the clouds. The dog was not impressed with the whole thing as he was occupied with more canine concerns.
The eclipse made me think of some of my favorite authors. Isaac Asimov staged many of his stories among the stars. The latter Foundation novels were really travels where the characters discussed Asimov's theories from different points of view. Arthur C. Clarke used the stars more poetically. The action of the stories had to be out there. In the Space Odyssey stories the stars were even alive in some way. We need more writers like that around today.
