Posted on 08/26/2007 1:04:32 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
DENVER - The Earth's shadow will creep across the moon's surface early Tuesday, slowly eclipsing it and turning it shades of orange and red. The total lunar eclipse, the second this year, will be visible in North and South America, especially in the West. People in the Pacific islands, eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand also will be able to view it if skies are clear.
People in Europe, Africa or the Middle East, who had the best view of the last total lunar eclipse in March, won't see this one because the moon will have set when the eclipse begins at 4:51 a.m. EDT. It will take an hour to reach full eclipse stage.
An eclipse occurs when Earth passes between the sun and the moon, blocking the sun's light. It's rare because the moon is usually either above or below the plane of Earth's orbit.
Since the Earth is bigger than the moon, the process of the Earth's shadow taking a bigger and bigger "bite" out of the moon, totally eclipsing it before the shadow recedes, lasts about 3 1/2 hours, said Doug Duncan, director of the University of Colorado's Fiske Planetarium. The total eclipse phase, in which the moon has an orange or reddish glow, lasts about 1 1/2 hours.
The full eclipse will be visible across the United States, but East Coast viewers will only have about a half-hour to see it before the sun begins to rise and the moon sets. Skywatchers in the West will get the full show.
In eastern Asia, the moon will rise in various stages of eclipse.
During the full eclipse, the moon won't be completely dark because some light still reaches it around the edges of the Earth. The light is refracted as it passes through our atmosphere, scattering blue light — which is why the sky is blue — but sending reddish light onto the moon.
"When someone asks why is it (the moon) red, you can say because the sky is blue," Duncan said.
The next total lunar eclipse occurs Feb. 21, 2008, and will be visible from the Americas, Europe and Asia.
“Is it feeling a little warm today, or is it just my hot flashes again?”
That’ll be some spectacle, along with Mars being its closest to Earth in, what, 1,000 years at the same time.....
Anybody going to be up for this one? I’m thinkin’ about it.
Gettin’ the camera ready. I’ll have pics prob tommorrow night. I’ll post here.
I am.
I’m out in the country and the coyotes are howling up a storm. They really seem to be reacting to the eclipse.
I think I will get up and out a bit more earlier than normal, it should reach full eclipse for me here in Wasilla, Alaska in one more hour, yesterday was a really nice minimal cloudy day in the afternoon with the temps in the mid 60’s so it should be good viewing.
Beautiful! I’m looking at it now! Thanks for these photos.
Cool, isn’t it?
I just saw it here in Sacramento, CA and it looks amazing to have the Moon almost completely dark except for a dark reddish glow on the surface.
Great Night here on the Left Coast for viewing this.
I don’t recall seeing such a redish orange glow in past eclipses I’ve seen.
Am I just remembering poorly?
That’s because of the light refraction through the atmosphere of Earth that we get the reddish glow on the Moon. If Earth had no atmosphere the Moon would have gone nearly completely dark. (By the way, the Moon has sometimes gone nearly black during a lunar eclipse in the past if there was a lot of dust in the atmosphere caused by things like a major volcanic eruption.)
Thanks much.
I think I understand the part the atmosphere plays . . . similar to the harvest moon effect in terms of color, right???
But why does this one seem reader, more colored, than my memory of past such eclipses??
My memory or something different in the atmosphere?
Got to see it too,thanks
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