LIMESTONE, Maine — As it happened, both lunar eclipses of 2014 occurred during overcast nights in Aroostook County — but that didn’t stop students from craning their necks skyward trying to catch a glimpse through a break in the clouds.
Knowing full well that their chances of observing the eclipse were minimal, just around 30 students woke up well before dawn to gather with fellow astronomy-minded students and faculty and pack into a classroom to watch streaming video of the event.
“I think it’s really great that we have so many people interested in astronomy,” said president of the Astronomy Club Lil Costello, a senior from Milo. “You wouldn’t see that anywhere else other than here, I’d say, especially in high school students.”
The lunar eclipse began around 5:15 a.m. and is the second eclipse of the tetrad — a series of four consecutive total eclipses occurring just about every six months.
As the moon progressed into the Earth’s shadow, students made a mix of astutely educational comments and, well, the kind of jokes that come from waking up too early.
“So that’s where the Pac-Man came from,” one student jested as the dark shadow formed a triangular cutout on the Moon.
The Astronomy Club of the residential high school consists of about 15 students, and double that turned out for the early morning lunar eclipse — which may have been the silver lining of the eclipse-obscuring cloudy morning.
“Everyone still got up early and are watching the live stream together,” noted Astronomy Club advisor and physics instructor Dr. Brian Sullivan. “Plus they might see the sun rise, which people don’t see as much as they used to.”
The students did venture out to the school’s baseball field in an attempt to peer through the clouds and Astronomy Instructor Larry Berz detailed exactly what they were looking for, but the overcast sky was relentless.
“It’s definitely pretty sad that we couldn’t see it,” Costello commented, “but there’s still people inside (watching the eclipse through a livestream feed) even though it’s cloudy out — which I think is really great. Even just watching it on a screen with a group of people is still pretty fun … it’s not as good as it would have been if we were outside, but you can’t get everything.”
With complete cloud cover in central Aroostook for the last lunar eclipse on April 15, the next one will take place on April 4, 2015 followed by another on Sept. 28, 2015.
