Lunar eclipse

Like a good many others I understand, I spent a fair amount of the later part of yesterday evening gazing heavenwards at the lunar eclipse. It is more than thirty years since I observed this phenomenon through an optical instrument. On that occasion I had just completed the construction of a six-inch reflecting telescope and well record the amazing sight of shadows racing across the surface of the moon as the eclipse progressed. Last night’s experience through rather more modest binoculars was not quite as spectacular but I was once more struck with awe at the immensity of God’s creation. The moon as one usually sees it is like a bright plate in the sky. Muted in colour as it is during an eclipse and magnified through my binoculars, it appeared more globe like and because of this one could not but wonder at the immense forces that keep it in its place suspended silently in ‘our’ sky. Science and religion are too often portrayed as being in opposition. Last night over the clear skies of Ely they were in heavenly harmony.