Did anyone happen to see the penumbral eclipse of the moon yesterday evening? It peaked off at about quarter to nine in Eastern time and two hours earlier here in Mountain Time. We saw it from our kitchen window; it's not as dramatic as a "real" eclipse, but it still was interesting. The moon passes through not the full shadow of the earth but the part of the shadow where some but not all of the sun's light on the moon is blocked. The result is a "graying down" of the affected area of the moon's surface. I'd seen the report of it in the Skywatcher's Diary that I download around the first of every month; it's put out by Michigan State University's Abrams Planetarium. But I forgot all about it until I looked out the window around six and noticed that the upper right part of the full moon looked faintly shadowed, almost as if a wispy cloud were drifting across it. That was when I remembered the note about the penumbral eclipse and re-read it. Quite a week for celestial shows . . . first the Leonids; then the penumbral eclipse. What next? Doris in Colorado (Up2Nutrix@aol.com) "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -- Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr