The Longest Night

Tonight is the longest night of the year. (Well, actually, the longest night is tomorrow night.) Typically here in NW Montana, we don't get many clear days or nights in the winter. Being in a valley, we see a lot of inversion type weather (IE: cloudy, foggy sky's). I know that there are some areas at this longitude (or is it latitude?) that can view the northern lights or shooting stars in the winter. But we very rarely see any of these heavenly phenomenons. It's just usually too cloudy. But tonight, it's relatively clear. At least kind of. I stole a few moments outside just now to see what I could see. And I could just barely make out the almost-full moon. (I'm kind of a goofball for weather and nature related events. I get this from my Dad. So I'm really excited about tonight's full lunar eclipse.) In a couple of hours, I'm going to nudge my beloved and we are going to venture out of our warm, toasty, comfortable, snuggly (the spell check says this is spelled wrong. I don't believe it.) bed, pull on our heavy, down coats and go outside. Since we live in the country we have a completely unobstructed view of the sky and therefore, the full eclipse of the moon that is supposed to occur tonight. If we can see anything at all- even if it's just a shadow of an eclipsing moon, I'm going to rouse those the kids up. These are the things that make memories and by golly, the kids are going to remember this night! They don't have school tomorrow because they are on Christmas break. So it's a perfect time to GET THOSE KIDS OUT OF BED. THERE'S A HEAVENLY EVENT TO VIEW......MAYBE......IF WE ARE LUCKY.......AND IT STAYS CLEAR......


So stay tuned.
If I can take a picture of the beautiful eclipsed moon, I'll do it.
But we all know the limits of my amazing picture taking skills.
The full story tomorrow. Stay tuned.



UPDATE: Tuesday- the night after the monumental lunar eclipse on the very eve of the winter solstice: I got up twice in the night and no heavenly views. It was just too cloudy. So I guess we have to wait another 453 years before the full moon is eclipsed on the winter solstice. Too bad the event wasn't tonight. It's cold and clear outside. 7 degrees above zero and still as a breath. When we lived in the city, you could hear the electrical lines popping and cracking on really cold nights like tonight. Kind of a weird,eerie sound.