Here’s a slightly off-topic post, for which I hope I will be forgiven. But it was just so much fun, I can’t resist …
Last night I hosted “Moon and a Mocha II” at the Capitola Book Cafe. The announcement below, clipped from the San Jose Mercury-News, pretty well describes the event.
Up until the very last moment I had no idea whether I was going to give my talk inside or outside. The weather had been partly cloudy all day, and was getting cloudier as night fell. But as I drove to the Book Cafe, I could see the partly eclipsed moon rising, and the clouds were thin enough that it shone right through them. The moon continued ducking in and out of the clouds. But by 7:00, when we were supposed to begin, it was clear that we had a pretty big crowd outside waiting to look through the telescope, and so I decided I’d better go outside where the people were.
That turned out to be the right decision, because the moon continued to be visible — even through the clouds — throughout the total eclipse. It was so much fun to stand there, with the eclipsed moon right up there in the sky behind me, and tell stories like how an eclipse saved Columbus and who discovered the cause of eclipses. (Hint: He was tried and convicted of heresy — and no, his name wasn’t Galileo.) I kept the people entertained while they were waiting in line for the telescope. After they were done they would come and sit down in the chairs that had been set up. They asked lots and lots of questions, and good ones too. I’ve found in both of my “Moon and a Mocha” nights that I don’t really need to prepare a long lecture. The crowd at the book cafe is just so curious and eager to ask questions that I can let them take over after a few minutes.
I was especially glad to see a lot of children in the audience. One class came as an assignment for school. I asked three of the children to demonstrate what happens during a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse, using three balls of different sizes to represent the sun, Earth, and the moon. The little girl who held up the moon couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old, and she was missing her front teeth. I wish I had a picture of her. She was so cute!
Eventually the total eclipse ended and we went inside, where I signed some books and showed a DVD slideshow of the August lunar eclipse, which had been given to me by Jerry Miller, a member of the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club. The bookstore’s manager was very pleased. She estimated the total attendance at 60 people — a lot more than they usually get for a book signing!
We now return this blog to our regular topics. Thanks for indulging my other interests!
