Last night, while most here in Cambodia were sleeping, and those of you in North or South America were awake, but without a moon in your sky, I was up at 3 am photographing the third-shortest partial lunar eclipse in the 21st century.
The Earth’s dark umbral shadow barely clipped last night’s full moon for 27 minutes, causing a portion of the moon to disappear under darkness. This event was not as exciting as the annular solar eclipse I photographed last year, but it was still a beautiful event.
I did my best to explain to my Cambodian friends this lunar eclipse was going to happen. Most could not understand what I was talking about, and no one was interested in getting up a 3 am with me to see what ever I was talking about. There is a Khmer word for eclipse. I had to it up in the dictionary. Today when showed the word around, many people had not heard of the word. Most misinterpreted it as a new moon. So I have had several impromptu science lessons today with mixed results.
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