There is an interesting opportunity next month for anyone who wishes to mark the December solstice in some special way. Many of you know of Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels near Lucin in northwest Utah. (For those of you who don't, there are numerous articles and images online, such as this one at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Holt.) The tunnels were created to mark observations of the sun's rising and setting at the solstices, but when the geometry is right the Moon can also be seen to rise and set through the tunnels. This December's lunar eclipse will offer such an opportunity. Although the eclipse itself will occur late at night when the Moon is high in the sky, eclipse geometry means that the Moon is very nearly centered on the ecliptic, so that it, too, will appear to rise through one pair of tunnels and set through the other pair. I first saw the sun tunnels in December of 1991 with VonDel Chamberlain, when a similar partial lunar eclipse allowed for photographs of the Moon through the Sun Tunnels. One advantage of observing the Sun Tunnels in December is that almost no one else is crazy enough to do it so there's a lot of room to get great photos. (VonDel and I stayed overnight at the tunnels. The temperature was at least -20F.) There's at least one motel in Montello, Nevada, about 20 miles away for those who aren't hardy enough for camping. ;-) Kim