So many posts, so little time

Dragon Mood? -- excited and romantic?

Where to start, where to start??

Let's start at 35,000 feet. That was our cruising altitude, wending our way to Florida -- at night. It was Valentine's Day night and I had the window seat on the left (and east) side of the plane. We had left the twinkling megalopolis that is Chicago behind with another one quickly approaching (Indianapolis). I looked to the east and saw this golden elliptical bulb low in the sky -- what is that? It's the moon. The moon rising, actually. S and I were exclaiming over it when the pilot announced the dramatic moon sighting over the PA. There were sharp "Ohs!" and exclamations all around us.

Now ... to that elliptical shape. S and I had quite the logical-cum-scientific conversation about it. I was discombobulated over its elliptical shape. S announced fairly quickly on that it was due to distortion from the Earth's atmosphere. I wondered, could it be our angle of view? Now, think about holding a ball in your outstretched hand; is there any way that you can twist your hand or your arm that will make that sphere *look* like an ellipse. Is there? No ... no, of course not. So, I answered my own question that it certainly couldn't be our angle of view.

So, back to S's hypothesis about the atmosphere. I questioned her about it. She said that due to our position in the plane and the moon rising up over the Earth's horizon, we were actually viewing the moon through the atmosphere and the atmosphere was distorting its spherical shape to look elliptical. Something like that, anyway. Sure enough, as we flew further south, the moon rose higher in the sky relative to our vantage point; the higher it rose, the more spherical it became. Brighter, less golden, too.

But don't let my pseudo-scientific ramblings distort the fact that it was a stunning sight, wondrous in its beauty and most personally, an especially romantic accompaniment to our Valentine's night flight to tropical Florida.