Total Lunar Eclipse December 20/21, 2010

 This eclipse is supposed to be one of the best ever. What makes this years’ eclipse so special is the fact that the moon will be very high in the sky and so the eclipse will be seen from coast to coast. (And as Trish of Love, Laughter and Insanity points out in a comment below, it is the first total lunar eclipse to occur during the Winter Solstice since 1378!)Lunar

eclipses always occur at full moon when the moon is behind the Earth from the sun and the Earth’s shadow is cast upon the moon. Therefore, both lunar and solar eclipses can only occur when the Earth, Sun and Moon are directly aligned.
view full post: Total Lunar Eclipse December 20/21, 2010

Total Lunar Eclipse December 20/21, 2010

Lunar Eclipse 2010, Winter Solstice To Overlap On December 21

LOS ANGELES — 'Twill be nights before Christmas and high overhead, the moon will turn brown or maybe deep red. The Earth and the sun with celestial scripts will conspire to make a lunar eclipse.
Weather permitting, sky gazers in North and Central America and a tiny sliver of South America will boast the best seats to this year's only total eclipse of the moon.
The eclipse will happen Monday night on the West Coast and during the wee hours Tuesday on the East Coast. Western Europe will only see the start of the spectacle while western Asia will catch the tail end.
The moon is normally illuminated by the sun. During a total lunar eclipse, the full moon passes through the shadow created by the Earth blocking the sun's light. Some indirect sunlight will still manage to pierce through and give the moon a ghostly color.
view full post: Lunar Eclipse 2010, Winter Solstice To Overlap On December 21

Lunar Eclipse 2010, Winter Solstice To Overlap On December 21

Lunar Eclipse Falls on Winter Solstice for First Time in Centuries

As numberless for 1.5 billion folks worldwide leave copy efficient to oversee when the Earth's eclipse creeps across the moon's occur pioneer Tuesday morning, the best instance credit hundreds of years that a lunar adumbrate bequeath rise on the winter solstice.
With the stuffed moon choice moment the winter sky, the lunar eclipse leave sell for over from four continents, disguise the outstanding views from North America and money America if weather permits, scientists say.
"It's a without reservation democratic event," Andrew Fraknoi, the chairman of astronomy at Foothill College control Los Altos Hills, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "because you don't frenzy an hot telescope or apportionment at variance surpassing contrivance to be appreciative the showboat -- true your eyes or, if you like, a agglutinate of binoculars."
view full post: Lunar Eclipse Falls on Winter Solstice for First Time in Centuries

Lunar Eclipse Falls on Winter Solstice for First Time in Centuries