Lunar Eclipse
On the night of April 14/15, Monday going into Tuesday, there will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible from a large area on Earth.
This graphic shows where the best viewing will be; far western Europe will get a glimpse of the eclipse as it starts closet to 6:00 UTC, but North and South America will largely get the full show.
6:00 UTC is 2:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight time, so this eclipse will happen in the dead of night, but could well be an excuse to get up (if it isn’t supposed to rain for you, as it is for me. Sigh). The full extent of the eclipse should be around 3:00 to 4:30 a.m.
The Earth casts a shadow in two parts; the penumbra, a hazy outer-shadow and the umbra, a darker inner shadow. The two sections occur as a consequence of the geometry – since the sun isn’t a single point of light but instead has a diameter to it, there is an inner focused area to the shadow and an outer area where some light paths are clear but others are blocked.
There are actually several spacecraft orbiting the moon right now, including the LADEE mission and the LRO mission which has an incredible set of cameras on it, so it’s plausible we might get a nice view of this lunar eclipse taken from the Moon if the orbits work right.
This will be the first of 4 lunar eclipses within the next 2 years, so if you don’t get good weather for this one, keep an eye out for the next one this fall.
-JBB
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via Tumblr http://ift.tt/1u4jgfZ November 11, 2014 at 08:01AM
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