Moonstruck During Total Eclipse: Hundreds at Oceanfront Park View Rare Event
By Jerome Burdi, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Mar. 4–OCEAN RIDGE — Fascination with watching the Earth’s shadow cross the face of a full moon dates back to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. And the awe of watching such cosmic synchronism hasn’t faded much since then.
That’s why Boynton Beach High School science teacher Erich Landstrom brought his students, along with telescopes, to share the experience with the hundreds who gathered Saturday night to watch the age-old dance in Oceanfront Park.
“This is project-based learning,” Landstrom said. “I taught them to discover for themselves and make their own connection to the universe.”
Students were handing out materials about the moon, including a coloring book and poster from the movie, The Astronaut Farmer.
“You learn a lot about what’s out there,” said senior Janeene Sobers, 17, with Michael Jackson tunes playing on her iPod as the sun set and Venus appeared.
Jennifer Ramos, 16, a junior at the high school, said normally she would be out with friends on a Saturday night, not watching the moon with her father.
“I’m so glad everyone’s here sharing the experience,” Ramos said, admitting her teacher’s enthusiasm in class had rubbed off on her. “Before that the moon was just the moon, not this majestic thing.”
Despite a somewhat cloudy night, the moon made its appearance as promised. The next lunar eclipse will be Aug. 27 before sunrise, Landstrom said.
“Frequently this kind of event turns a young mind into wanting to learn about science,” said Jack Horkheimer, director of the Space Transit Planetarium at the Miami Science Museum and host of the popular astronomical television program Star Gazer. “Carl Sagan once told me lunar eclipses also excited him when he was a kid.”
The last lunar eclipse seen in South Florida was over two years ago. The tail end of this one was seen Saturday in this hemisphere. It started about 4:30 p.m. but by the time the moon broke the horizon it was about 6:30 p.m., where it was almost completely covered by the Earth’s shadow, or umbra. By about 7 p.m. hundreds of heads turned upward as the spherical edge of the Earth’s shadow already started to leave. A sliver of milky moon lit the sky.
“You’re looking at the oldest visual proof that our Earth is round,” Horkheimer said.
It was that curve that made the ancients believe the Earth was round, he said, a belief lost in the Dark Ages.
The lunar eclipse, a common occurrence in the theater of cosmic phenomena, is a humbling experience, one that cannot be altered by mankind.
“This is all real,” said Deirdre Rothleder, 67, who lives west of Lake Worth. “Nobody made this, except God.”
Jerome Burdi can be reached at jjburdi@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6531.
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Copyright (c) 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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