While we were in Ipoh last week, we went to a park somewhere near where we stayed.  We found this romantic bird couple enjoying their time with each other happily.  We were touched by their romantic moments therefore we took the opportunity to capture this lovely shot.

They were sharing a tender kiss.

They didn’t seem to mind being observed and their photos being taken.  What does love mean in the world of birds?

Do you notice anything special in the picture above?  This picture was taken when I was on board the aeroplane the other day.  As you might have observed, there is cloud and land.  But take a closer look, there are some black spots and they are actually the shadow of the cloud!

Nature is always a good painter.  With the shape of the cloud, you can use your imagination to guess what it looks like.  Here I consider it as a small umbrella.  From the view above the sky, the cloud helped to cover part of the land to prevent the direct burn from the sun.  While the cloud was moving, the land take turn to share the shade because the shade was limited. 

If the shade is too big, and caused few hours losing the direct sunlight, some human on that area will thought it is a cloudy day and no direct sunlight for them to dry their cloth, while some will enjoy the weather because the day is cooler especially in the tropical countries.

I like smaller pieces of cloud.  First, it is not too cloudy and would not be too dark on the land.  Second, it has less potential to have a rain.

The shape of the shadow is identical as the shape of the cloud even it is in the ocean.

Another thing that I have noticed, the cloud is preventing itself from going out of the boundary between land and the sea.  The cloud has not enough place to stay above the land, therefore part of the cloud were forced to stay above the ocean no matter if they are willing or not.

Please correct me if I am wrong, from what I have learned from Geography in the early day: - The wind always exists at the coast.  During day time, the direction of the wind is blowing towards the land, therefore the cloud has been carried by the wind and sent inward to the land.  There was not much cloud in the middle of the ocean.

If I tell you the angle of the shadow is exactly 90 degrees vertically down the cloud, can you tell me what is the time when the photo was taken?  In the older days, the ancient China clocks were just made of a needle and a plate marked with the time and placing it under the sun.  Based on the shadow of the needle on the plate, they know what was the time. 

The sun shines on us everyday and reflects our shadows on the ground but we never thought of it as something peculiar.  It is something so normal.  As our interest, we help you rediscover the nature elements where they may be the most common things but sometimes being ignored.  Let’s regain our awareness about our surroundings and of course ourselves.  We need to discover ourselves too, otherwise the part that we ignore would become our surrounding as well.

It just happened in the last hour.

This is the second morning for us on our 3rd Ipoh trip in 2008.  Since I slept earlier last night, I wake up very early this morning for my daily prayer. 

It was 5:35am.  I was facing a window with the moon on the western direction.  I saw a crescent moon before I started my prayer.  I didn’t care much about it.  Half way I prayed, I saw the crescent moon have turned into a half moon.  I felt a bit strange; I guessed it was a lunar eclipse. 

First reason: - today is 17th day in Chinese calendar.  Between 15th -18th day in Chinese calendar, the moon supposed to be full moon.  Second reason: - it doesn’t look like covered by the cloud.  I temporary paused my prayer because I cannot concentrate anymore.  I started wanting to find out the truth.  It was now 5:55am.

I waked SiewPeng, and SMSed friends in Kuching to ask them to check whether the moon was full.  Then I quickly took photos of the moon, and search from the internet.

Yes, it was a partial lunar eclipse.

The timings of the major phases of the eclipse are listed below.
Penumbral Eclipse Begins:   18:24:49 UT (2:24:29am Malaysia Time)
Partial Eclipse Begins:     19:36:07 UT (3:36:07am Malaysia Time)
Greatest Eclipse:           21:10:09 UT (5:10:09am Malaysia Time)
Partial Eclipse Ends:       22:44:16 UT (6:44:16am Malaysia Time)
Penumbral Eclipse Ends:     23:55:25 UT (7:55:25am Malaysia Time)
[Quoted from NASA website.]

Every few minutes I continued to take photos.  The moon was slowly getting out of the shadow of the Earth.  It was half moon but 30 minutes later it turned into almost full moon.  But it was in orange colour.

The sky was getting bright but the moon was still in orange colour.

I missed the greatest eclipse time, but I am happy that I have accidentally discovered it and still can see the last part of it where the moon is still in the penumbral.  My observation ended at 6:55am when the moon sank into the cloud.  This time it was really covered by the cloud.

The moon was starting sinking into the cloud.

Wow, I searched “moon eclipse” in Wikipedia and found the moon photo taken at 4am just now were there.  They were really extremely fast and work in real time mode.  When I check it again now, it is a full gallery of the lunar eclipses happened just now.

The moon hided herself into the cloud.

I will take note on the next sun and moon eclipses, and I do not want to miss them again.

I should continue to pray now.