Standing in the shadow

 

Photo by Canadian photographer Andrew Yee in Toronto

I told the Resident Fan Boy I'd scout ahead for a view of the partial lunar eclipse, seeing as we'd gone up prematurely the night before. 

Out on the roof before 9 pm, unmistakeable, the shadowy red/black orb with a gleaming white-gold top.

I texted: "YES!", seconds before our hall neighbour suddenly appeared in the bright rectangle of the doorway.

"Can you see the eclipse?" she inquired.

I gestured excitedly to the south-east, just beyond her viewpoint.  "Are you kidding? Just come and see!"

(To be fair, it seems most people aren't sure about their compass directions.)

As she texted and phoned her parents, the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter arrived, and I guided them a little further along the fenced walkway, where there was a gap between two trees.  Younger daughter gasped.

About half a dozen people turned up, with their phones alight, alas, but they soon turned them off.

As the western horizon darkened, the stars pierced the indigo sky overhead. Younger daughter murmured, "I'm looking for Orion."

"Oh, that's a winter constellation; you don't see him in the summer."  I pointed to the north-east.  "See that 'W'?  That's Cassiopeia."  I turned to the high west.  "And that's the Big Dipper.  Can you see the handle?"

We waited for the peak of the eclipse, the stars multiplying and burning brighter. Then the RFB and younger daughter, shivering a bit in their summer tops, withdrew. 

Wrapped in my fleece jacket, I leaned on the narrow walkway's rather rickety railing, gazing eastward at the shadow of our planet across the moon, and listening idly to the small mob of relatively youthful friends mis-identifying the constellations.