Chasing the moon

There's something magical about an eclipse. It kind of makes the world stop while you watch disc of the sun or the moon hanging in the sky.

Our first attempts at eclipse chasing were a bit of a disaster. In 1999 we trekked over to France to see the solar eclipse only to spend the morning in a field full of noisy frenchmen and an overcast sky. As if to add insult to injury it cleared up shortly afterwards to a perfect sunny afternoon.

Then there was a lunar eclipse at about 2:30am. Patrick and I piled into the car with some duvets, hot drinks and sandwiches and went out of town to find some clear skies. But could we find a break in the clouds? We raced down the M42 towards Oxford looking for a break and eventually pulled into a country lane and wrapped up in our duvets waiting to see what happened. Nothing! So at about 5am we gave it up as a bad job and came home.

So determined not to be beaten we piled off to Zimbabwe in 2001 to chase the solar eclipse. The sky was perfect, the location was incredible, the people were fantastic. And the sight of the black circle of the eclipsed sun hanging in the twilight sky was one of those images that stay with you forever.

The next lunar eclipse made up for it all. The skies were clear, we drove out of town to find a dark place and sat in the car watching the moon like a brown plastic ball hanging in the sky.

Last night was much the same - I got cold standing outside in my dressing gown so I found a place I could watch it out the window. Captain Cook was once saved by an eclipse:- he told some natives who were giving him a hard time that the gods were going to come and eat up the moon that night to show that they had to be nice to him. It worked!

He had to work it out for himself - if you want to know when the next eclipse is going to be then check out the Goddard Space Flight Centre website.