§ Moody Blues...

HAPPY HOODIE HOO DAY!

According to last evening's local newscast, and the weather segment, since January 1st of 2018, Corpus Christi has had FOUR days of sun!! The rest of the days...over fifty; the sky has been overcast and gray. I know I've said this many times now, but I really need the bright sun to come out and stay for a while! To show you some of the days....tho intermittent with some sunshine now and then, I share the moody sky. Starting with the total eclipse of the moon on January 31st...

Seagulls taking off over Oso Bay - North Shore Pier

Patchy Fog on the Pollywog Trail - Looking out from the bay toward the Gulf of Mexico

Jet contrail behind the silhouetted tree - Semi truck in the fog...climbing the Harbor Bridge


Mackerel Sky [clouds]...embiggen it and notice the plane!  - Filtered sunlight in the park!


...and the forecast for the next few days, I need to acquire some gills to survive; or so it seems!!! HEAVY RAIN

§ I See the Moon [and a critter]...

...but the critter isn't ON the Moon!!

Honestly, I had a post readied and prescheduled to post at midnight but since I got up early to watch the blood moon eclipse and to try to get some decent photos of the event, I thought I'd share this instead and save my other post for fences and skywatch and critters for some other time. And yes, while out there in the mosquito infested yard, in the dark, I was fumbling around and trying not to stumble over anything...but, I had company!! ['possum on the fence]

I'll share my company first.....

In the 2nd photo, notice how LONG its tail is...from the bottom of its well....bottom, curving down to the left on the fence, and it actually is quite similar in color to the hibiscus branch!!

Well, I got out of bed very early. I had read online that the eclipse was to begin around 5 a.m. EDT. Which meant in my time zone...4 a.m.!! I got out on the patio at 4:15 in the morning and the moon [luck was going my way...it was clear skies!!] was about half covered with our shadow already!

I took several blurry photos. Naturally. But the 'bloodier' it became, the better I could focus on a bit of detailing...

...after about an hour of watching the moon and our shadow covering the entire surface, then, we started to spin away and the shadow was receding as the moon was dropping toward the horizon [the dark line at the bottom of the moon is a power line!]

...around 5:30 a.m. it began getting lighter and the moon was beginning to drop too near the neighborhood homes/rooftops. The color of the moon changed dramatically the later it became....

Around 6:15/6:30 I went back outdoors and stood on one of our patio benches...the moon was still under partial eclipse, but a normal 'white glow' with a faint shadow at the bottom quarter. By that time the moon dropped completely from my view. And the phenomenal occurrence during this blood moon eclipse is....as the moon set in the west, the sun was rising to the east at the same time!!! It's called a selenelion, and it occurs when the sun and moon are 180 degrees apart in the sky at the same time.

Furthermore, we are in a rare series of lunar eclipses. This lunar eclipse is the second of a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses. The first total lunar eclipse was April 15, 2014, and the next two will be on April 4 and Sept. 28 of next year. This series of total lunar eclipses is rare and the next series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses will not occur until the year 2032.

linking to: Good Fences - Skywatch Friday - Willy Nilly Friday 5 - Camera Critters - Saturday Critters