Friday, November 07, 2003
Lunar Eclipse
There's a total eclipse of the Moon tomorrow evening. I thought I'd mention it today for the benefit of all those of you who don't read blogs at the weekend (which appears to be about a third of you). They're not over-exciting, lunar eclipses, but this one's happening at a time when there's a vague chance you might be awake to see it. There are two more next year, but one's at moonrise so it'll probably be too low to see, and the other's at three o'clock on a Thursday morning. Which leaves tomorrow night, or else you'll have to wait until 2007 for your next decent chance.
Here's how the eclipse works:
22:15 Saturday: The Moon enters the outer shadow of the Earth, or penumbra. It gets slightly dark. Nobody notices.
23:23: The Moon enters the inner shadow of the Earth, or umbra. Slowly the top left corner is eaten away, still sort of visible but darker, then more and more disappears until the whole disc has gone.
01:06 Sunday: Total eclipse. The Earth lies now directly between the Sun and the Moon, so no light can get through, so the Moon goes dark. Not black though, usually a sort of dark red colour, because some light is still getting through diffracted by the Earth's atmosphere. But quite moody-looking all the same.
01:30: Ah, that didn't last long. The bottom left of the Moon edges back out into light shadow, and the eclipse is partial again. And slowly more and more partial.
03:04: Back into the outer shadow, where the eclipse is again barely even noticeable.
04:21: That's it, all over, and the full Moon shines brightly once again.
Alternative schedule:
22:15 Saturday: Cloudy. Bugger.
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