I hope you had a chance to enjoy the lunar eclipse earlier this year in the early hours of April 15. I dubbed it the great income tax day lunar cover up. Unfortunately I missed it since I was too under the weather and needed my sleep.
If you missed the April show you have another chance. We have a real treat in 2014, two total lunar eclipses in one year. Like April’s lunar cover up, you’ll need to set a trusty alarm clock to watch the ruddy lunar cover up in the early morning hours of Oct. 8. The moon will begin slipping into Earth’s ruddy shadow at 2:15 a.m. and will stay there until 5:34 a.m.
Lunar eclipses occur when the moon, in its orbit around the Earth, passes through the Earth’s shadow opposite the sun, known also as the umbra shadow. This can only happen during a full moon, when our planet lies in a line between the sun and moon. However, this doesn’t occur every time there’s a full moon because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is tilted by five degrees to the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Most of the time the full moon misses the Earth’s shadow as it orbits our world. It either passes above or below it. Not this time though, as the moon forges right into the umbra shadow on Wednesday morning.
Right around 2:15 a.m. you’ll start to see the upper left side of the moon’s disk begin to darken, and by 3 a.m. you’ll really see a big bite being taken out of the moon. You can’t help but notice that the shadow has a circular edge to it as it creeps across the lunar surface. Ancient Greek scientists saw this circular shadow of the Earth as proof the Earth was round. Now they were really ahead of their time.
From 3:25 a.m. until 4:24 a.m. the moon will be totally eclipsed but will still be visible. It could take on a bright orange hue or it might be bloody red. No one can predict what hue the eclipsed moon will take.
Only the shadow knows — the Earth’s umbra shadow that is. The umbra shadow opposite the sun is not totally dark because some of the sun’s light manages to get through our Earth’s atmospheric shell, as you can see in the diagram.
The sunlight that does get through is bent and strained as it comes through our atmosphere. All of the blue and yellow components of the sun’s light are scattered away leaving just the reddish part of the sun’s light that bathes the eclipsed moon. The shade of the red light reaching the moon depends on the combined atmospheric conditions of where the sunlight passes through on its way to the moon. That makes it impossible to know exactly what shade of red or orange the eclipsed moon will take on, but it’s also part of the fun of a total lunar eclipse. No matter how red the moon gets, you can count on the main street media to dub it as a “blood moon” because of their need to overhype.
No matter what shade of red the moon takes on it will be beautiful and perfectly safe to look at. Unlike solar eclipses you don’t have to look through any special glass or anything, although any time you stare at a full moon it could affect you … maybe even make you a little loony.
Seriously, though, it’s a wonderful experience to watch a total lunar eclipse, and it’s even more fun through a pair of binoculars or a telescope. During totality you’ll see the moon pass in front of or eclipse several stars. Normally it’s hard to see these stellar eclipses because of the brightness of the moon, but with the moon going through an hour-long “power failure” they’re a lot easier to see. Also, because the moon has no atmosphere you’ll see stars popping out of view on the eastern side of the moon’s disk and popping into view on the western side.
To make this coming lunar eclipse extra special you’ll have a chance to easily see the planet Uranus with binoculars or a small telescope. It’s usually difficult to locate in the night sky, but on Wednesday morning you can use the eclipsed moon to easily find it. You may even see the seventh planet out from the sun with your naked eyes depending on how dark the skies are in your location. Just look for a star-like object just to the left of the eclipsed moon, only about a half a degree away. That’s only about half the width of your finger held at arm’s length. Even with a telescope there’s no way you’ll see any detail, but it will be bluish-green in color. A trick to help you see Uranus’s color a little better is to look at the planet through your scope a little out of focus. The blurry circle will let you see its color a little more easily. Uranus is over 1.7 billion miles away from Earth right now and takes more than 84 years to orbit the sun.
Let’s hope and pray for clear enough skies Wednesday morning, but if the clouds block our view all isn’t lost because there are two more total lunar eclipses in 2015. Don’t forget to set that alarm.
Later this month, during the afternoon and early evening of Oct. 23 we’ll have a partial solar eclipse that will be visible widely across most of North America. I’ll have more on that in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, you might want to order some eclipse glasses now so you’ll be able to view the solar eclipse.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations” published by Adventure Publications available at bookstores at http://www.adventurepublications.net
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
