You know those “How to tell if you’re a redneck” lists? This morning it occurred to me that there’s a foolproof way to tell if you’re a geek: getting up at three a.m. to stare at the moon for a couple of hours because it’s a funny color.

Better than television, as far as I’m concerned. Way better. Pictures below the fold.

Totality. Without a telescope, nothing else in the sky ever actually looks like a sphere.

Earth’s shadow sliding away. Sunlight filtered through the Earth’s atmosphere makes that red color (just like sunset).

The fuzziness at the edge of Earth’s shadow is the atmosphere. Again, without a lot of special equipment, that’s the only time you’ll see a fuzzy anything in the whole night sky.