"You want it to be one way. But it's the other way."
Terminator: “The boundary between the illuminated part of the Moon’s disc and the dark part is called the terminator. At the time of the quarter moon, it is essentially a straight line running north-south. At other times it will appear as a curved line.”
(Taken handheld earlier tonight with my son Thom’s nice 70-200 Canon zoom lens. Click on the image for a larger version.)
Last night, Kate called me at work to say I ought to get out and see the moon rising. I agreed. I walked out of the office and up a steep stretch of Mariposa Street to a spot with an open view to the east across U.S. 101. There was a rising moon and lots of traffic. My camera’s just limping along these days, but this is actually a pretty good impression of the scene.
Remember when we landed on the moon? (That we comes very easily: not sure if I mean we humans or we Americans, who really made it happen, and then went on to other, much less grand things.) As Rob, among others, remembers, our initial visit to that rock out there happened 39 years ago today.
I’ll save the reminiscing for some other time. Maybe I can get my brothers to write parallel versions of our great 1972 expedition to Florida to watch Apollo 17, the last moon launch.
But until then: By way of my brother John: some nifty NASA video of the Earth and the moon, as no one had ever seen them back in 1969.
[Soundtrack below, by way of the late Nick Drake]
