Interesting Night

I woke up abruptly last night to a thump and lay there wondering, was that an earthquake or just cats gallumphing down the stairs. As all the cats showed up on the bed a few minutes later I decided in their favor. However, when I checked out one of our local news website sanjuanislander.com there was indeed a 4.5 magnitude earthquake at 5:25 PST this morning. The cats probably showed up as a result of the earthquake not as the cause of it.

But my interesting night wasn't over. Being wide awake in spite of the fact it was still dark I went outside. It was cold and clear and there was a band of light across the sky from west to east. This band was a uniform width about 2 fingers wide if you held up your hand. As I watched for about 10 minutes it slowly moved north and faded out.

I saw this same phenomena about 20 years ago. I believe it is called an auroral arch. That time it was in association with an auroral display but last night I saw no other aurora. However, I may have missed the first part of the show. We do get auroras here now and again. Last time I saw this there were ripples of light moving along the band. This time I didn't see any ripples but my eyes are definitely 20 years older and there is more light pollution from Vancouver BC to the north of us than there was then. What an interesting night. I have to admit that I went back to bed and slept soundly until 8:00. I am not a morning person.

Lunar eclipse

I've spent the evening running in and out checking on the progress of the lunar eclipse. It was too cold to sit outside and watch but we manged to see it totally eclipsed and several stages before and after. An eclipse is always magical. You start out with a bright moonlit night and it gets darker and darker and somehow quieter and quieter. Any night birds seem to stay quiet. I did hear a barred owl call once and a very few frogs now and again.

When I was a kid growing up near Tacoma, Washington, my father was president of the local amateur astronomers club for years. We were often dragged outside in any weather to see an eclipse, the northern lights, and I particularly remember Sputnik going over (that does date me, doesn't it). I did the same for my kids, getting them up in the middle of the night to go outside and see a comet or the northern lights. The club also used to have star parties up at Mt. Rainier where we could get away from the light pollution of the city. Each member would set up a telescope looking at something different and we would wander around checking out Jupiter's moons, various nebulae, the rings of Saturn. We had a telescope at home and often looked at interesting objects in space. We now have a small telescope that my Dad gave me a couple of years before he died and we often set it up to see comets, planets, and other celestial objects.