Saturday night date with lunar eclipse

[DiscGo]

Saturday night date with lunar eclipse


PARIS (AFP) - The Moon will turn a shade of copper red this Saturday when it will be fully eclipsed by the Earth, whose shadow will blot out all but a tiny bit of refracted solar light.


Star gazers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa will have a front-and-center view of the eclipse in a late-night sky, with the zenith occurring at 23:21 GMT.

On the east coast of North America, the Moon will already be eclipsed when it rises at around sunset, while in Asia early risers will get a glimpse of the lunar blackout as the Moon sets.

Total lunar eclipses occur when the Sun, the Earth and the Moon are all in alignment and the Moon travels into the broad cone of shadow cast by the Earth.

The Moon does not become invisible, though, because there is still residual sunlight that is deflected towards it by the Earth's atmosphere, most of which is light in the red part of the spectrum.

That causes the Moon to appear as a dark colour, usually a coppery red, orange or even brown.

The Earth's shadow will begin to creep over the Moon -- a stage known as the penumbral eclipse -- at about 20:18 GMT on Saturday, according to
NASA, and will recede entirely some six hours later at 02:23 GMT on Sunday.

The period of total eclipse will be relatively short, lasting from 22:40 to 23:57 GMT, a total of 77 minutes.

Total lunar eclipses normally occur roughly every couple of years, but those who miss the one this weekend will get another chance to see the moon disappear on August 28. The last took place on October 28, 2004.

Total solar eclipses happen when the Moon crosses between the Earth and the Sun.

[DiscGo]

Have you guys ever seen Disney's "The Kid". There is kind of a funny part in that movie discussing why the moon looks red sometimes.




And if you haven't seen Disney's "The Kid", here is a biblical verse for you:
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come." Joel 2:31.

[JP]

I'll check the and see if there is any cloud cover. It was warm this afternoon, but the wind picked up later on.

[sparker1]

This photo of the eclipse was taken by a guy in UK. I "borrowed" it from another forum I frequent.

[DiscGo]

I know the article said that Europe, Africa, & Asia would have a perfect view but I had no idea we would get no view. The moon could not have looked whiter last night. It was cool looking, but there was no tint of red.

[DiscGo]

sparker-

Did someone on that site really take that picture or is it photoshopped? It looks incredible.

[JP]

Cool pic

[sparker1]

It was taken from a photography forum, so it may have been photoshopped to some extent. I don't think he would have gone overboard though.

[americanhero]

I had no chance to take a photo, cause we had no view. An hour before it get started the sky was totally covered with clouds.
I thought, I could try to shot some pics of it with my new camera and the tripod, but there was not a single second of clear sky.
But in some parts of Germany they were able to see it completely, as well as in Great Britain.

[Mtnman1830]

I was coming down waterfall canyon saturday evening, and it was pretty cloudy around 5pm, I figured it would be too cloudy to see here anyway...

When the space station was visible, I took my son out and showed him. Nothing like a streak of light across the sky to impress a seven year old.

[Cirrus2000]

Man, I would have been annoyed if it had been visible. I knew nothing about it, and the skies were pretty - incredibly - clear over the Paria Canyon. Perfect viewing opportunity in my wee tent.

I love grabbing the kids and running outside when the ISS is going by. Or an Iridium flare - seen that once so far. Need to remember to look it up more often.

Excellent tool: http://heavens-above.com/ for predicting satellite passes and flares off the Iridium satellites. Check it out...