Halloween, Full Moon Observing

by Bruce Anderson

I did the moon thing last night too, sans the TV. My angle was to don my Merlin the Magician cap, and see how many people could see the "blue" moon through my scope........with no mention that the moon was "blue" because I had inserted a light blue filter on the eyepiece. Most of the adults didn't notice, but some of the kids picked up on it right away- I had one little middle-school aged Dracula who not only noticed the blue filter, he told me the real definition of a "blue" moon, and then proceeded to point out Mars and a couple of constellations.........I asked him if he had a scope, and he said no- I also asked him how he knew about all of this stuff (school?) and he said that he was just interested in space, and did a lot of reading........I hope somebody else notices his interest.

Our house undergoes quite a transformation in the days leading up to Halloween, from a nondescript house in the middle of suburbia, to a medieval fortress surrounded and protected by a gauntlet of skeletons, ghouls, and ghosts. Each year my wife and I have added another feature, and between the fog machine, black lights, and assorted bats, rats, skeletons, ghosts, and goblins, it's quite a spectacle. Last year we won a neighborhood decorating contest, and my kids usually start asking me to take the stuff down from the attic around August. I had quite a crowd out in front of the house between about 7 and 8.......we live in an area that only has one road leading into and out of it, so not a lot of auto traffic. Wish I'd thought to have a look at Mars before I packed it in.........