Lunar Eclipse Day: Weather

It’s Lunar Eclipse Day.

Walked out this morning, don’t believe what I saw
Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore

– The Police, Message in a Bottle, 1979

 

Walked out this morning, completely believe what I saw
Just clouds. Loads of bloody clouds. šŸ™

– Me, this morning.Ā 

 

Over 12 hours until the eclipse starts. We can only hope that things in Cape Town clear a bit before then.

Two Pics

Here are two amazing pics from opposite ends of the world, neither of which are mine (the pics or the ends of the world):

Firstly a clever composite image of the recent total solar eclipse taken in Svalbard by Thanakrit Santikunaporn (not even joking).

EclipseSvalbard_Santikunaporn_960

Here’s a quick explanation of what was done and what it saw. Amazing.

And then this of the eruption of Calbuco, everyone’s favouriteĀ Chilean volcano, fromĀ Marcelo Utreras:

volc

Here are some details (and more, less good, photos) about that. YourĀ carbon footprint offsetting for the next two hundred years is now rendered utterly pointless, right there.

But on a more positive note: well done, great photo takers. We are impressed.

Space Station eclipse photo isn’t real

After the asphyxiated Capetonian dog, I’ve discovered that there’s even more fakery and hoaxism on the internet.
Hoodathunkit?

Lookie here: https://gizmodo.com/this-mind-blowing-image-of-the-eclipse-cant-possibly-be-5912184

Says Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz:

It’s a 3D rendering made in Terragen 2 by DevianArt user ~A4size-ska. It took 38 hours to render. The image of the Milky Way was added later in Photoshop. You can get the high resolution original here. It’s beautiful anyway.

Think first, share second, people…

I knew it the moment I saw it. It was just too similar to this astronomically impossible “Summer Solstice at the North Pole” image, which is obviously also not what it claims to be, but was also a digitally constructed picture, built in Terragen

c3e71f57cb735d61328627d12ea375ef

Thankfully, Jesus does share an REAL image of the moon’s shadow on the earth, taken from the International Space Station. Sadly, given the unlimited imagination and lack of astronomical restrictions of the images above, dare I suggest that it’s a little underwhelming:

17ney6wiq4muzjpg

Did I really just say that about a photo from the ISS? I think I did.

It’s all good though, because space ‘tog Don Pettit has previously given us this amazing stuff.