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| Tonight's the night...a super duper perigee moon of a lifetime. |
If I were to think this through in some sort of morbid way, I could think that this moon, this close, radiant moon which most everyone on earth will see only once in a lifetime, is really a bookend set of one's life. My dad was born in 1910, the year of Haley's Comet. It returned in the late 1980s and he was still alive (78 being a ripe older age) and he noted that although he didn't see the first one (as I didn't see this moon in 1948 either or not that I remember) he felt himself special and lucky to have two passes at one big event. I get two of this as well but if you are, say 50 now, you will be 128 the next time which is to say unlikely.
I had a neighbor growing up who was into all things astronomy and I can remember him calling the perigee moons the "reading moon"; so bright at night you could read a book by it. Some year, way back when, I stood in the snow in the middle of Carroll Park in Bay City, Michigan with him and his telescope. I could only see sections of the moon as it was bigger than the viewer but I could make out the words in the book that told me about it. One could reach out and touch it (and wanted to).
Anyway, tonight is going to be fun. 5:14pm EDT. It won't happen again.