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Total Lunar Eclipse This Weekend
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:04 AM
from the umbra-and-penumbra dept.
from the umbra-and-penumbra dept.
SeaDour writes "This Saturday night, March 3rd, a total lunar eclipse will be visible from nearly all inhabited parts of the world. A great shadow will stretch across the surface of the moon, eventually casting it in an eerie red glow as sunlight filters through our atmosphere onto the lunar surface. Viewers in Europe and Africa will have the best vantage point, able to watch the entire eclipse in action, while observers in most of the western hemisphere can see it eclipsed as it rises just after sunset."
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Lunar Eclipse Next Tuesday Morning 50 comments
Raver32 writes "Tuesday morning, Aug. 28 brings us the second total lunar eclipse of 2007. Those living in the Western Hemisphere and eastern Asia will be able to partake in at least some of this sky show.
The very best viewing region for viewing this eclipse will fall across the Pacific Rim, including the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as well as Alaska, Hawaii, New Zealand and eastern Australia. All these places will be able to see the complete eclipse from start to finish.
Europeans will miss out on the entire show, as the Moon will be below the horizon during their mid and late morning hours."
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When where.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:When where.. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I for one.. (Score:2, Informative)
Omen (Score:5, Informative)
The next total lunar eclipse [nasa.gov] occurs on August 28.
Imagine the advertising revenue! (Score:2, Interesting)
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Panic?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Panic?! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Panic?! (Score:4, Funny)
A "glass is half empty" type, I see. Try positive thinking: start referring to yourselfs as supermonkeys !-)
All I see here in Finland are clouds :(.
And the Moon doesn't disappear during a lunar eclipse, it is perfectly visible, just dimmer and redder than usual. Maybe you supermonkeys have bad eyesight as well ?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In my country, there's nobody who thinks that fucking a virgin can cure aids.
We don't believe that Saddam Hussein used to eat babies for lunch, either.
We don't believe that the world was created in six days. I someone can create the world in six days, someone could turn the moon red, and eat it in a minute, right? We don't expose our kids to that kind of "knowledge", either.
I don't think someone should be talking shit about culture in the third world, when talking from an US ce
Re:Panic?! (Score:5, Insightful)
How will 3rd world inhabitants react to this lunar eclipse?
Presumably with complete calm and mild interest, just like their condescending 1st world neighbors.
It's not like lunar eclipses aren't particularly rare, about two happen a year. A full eclipse is less frequent but still happens often enough to have been already experienced by most adults.
Indeed folks in poorer areas are usually less impressed by celestial phenomena because they are well familiar with such. Lighting costs money and so isn't as wasted as it is in many 1st world places, leaving the skies that much darker and their contents that much more visible.
Want to see someone freak out over the contents of a night sky? Take a young person from any large first world city far out into the countryside on a clear evening, let their eyes dark adjust, and then show them the night sky. That prompts "some pretty interesting responses".
Parent
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Revelations! (Score:2, Funny)
As the moon turns red...
"Quick, everyone pray, the rapture is starting!"
"But NASA said it's just..."
"Yeah, NASA also said your grandparents were monkeys. Now get praying, cos God's coming back!"
Re:Panic?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Please accept my apology on behalf of the vast majority of the rest of us in the "first world," lacking a better term. The parent's comment made me cringe so hard I almost imploded. I'm not sure if that cretin is from the US, but in case he/she is, as a sentient American, I doubly apologize.
I really wish assholes like the OP would quit talking about the rest of the world in such condescending terms. I'm sick of being made to look bad by association with fools like that. Believe it or not, OP, otherly-skinned or located people are not ignorant savages. Now if we could just get rid of the ignorant savages among us in the first world.
God, how embarrassing.
Parent
clouds (Score:4, Funny)
Except in the regions around England and the low countries, of course, where it is always clouded.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Q: "does it rain here often?"
A: "Only when there's no fog"
Over here (.nl) there's some cloud cover ATM, but I'd say it's less than 50%. The national met office reports a good chance at clear skies tonight.
It's times like these... (Score:2)
The only sad part is that I don't have a long enough lens for my camera to do it any justice. :(
Clouds (Score:2)
OffTopic: Saturn and Moon pictures (Score:2)
Moon in front of the Sun from earlier this week (Score:3, Interesting)
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day [nasa.gov] has the moon passing in front of the sun, as seen by STEREO.
Next Slashdot Post... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Next Slashdot Post... (Score:4, Funny)
That reminds me: Remember folks, a Solar Eclipse is when the Moon gets between the Earth and the Sun. Conversely, a Lunar Eclipse, which is what's happening tonight, is when the Sun gets between the Earth and the Moon.
Just letting you all know.
What's really upsetting is that I, and my party of missionaries, are due to be sacrificed by a cannibalistic tribe at noon today, and we were really hoping for a Solar eclipse as a result.
Parent
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I would assume the solar eclipse would save you as you command the gods to block out the sun.
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I don't know if you were trying to be funny here, but there is simply no way the Sun would fit between the Earth and Moon. A Lunar eclipse is, in fact, when the Earth gets between the Sun and the Moon.
Eric Idle (Score:5, Funny)
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Rotation of Earth 465 m/s at equator
2. Orbital velocity of Earth round Sun 29.8 km/s.
3. Motion of Solar neigbourhood around the Galaxy 200 km/s. (Mistake here? This is more like ten million miles a day or four hundred thousand miles an hour.)
4
A total lunar eclipse can be a beautiful thing (Score:4, Interesting)
And I looked up... it was very beautiful. With clear country air, no light pollution and no moonlight my eyes was able to see the stars in the Milkyway and around that you never see otherwise... the sky was really full of them and gave me a whole other sense of scale about our place in the galaxy. That might be the closest thing to go to space one can experience while still staying earthbound. I can imagine standing on the back of the moon watching out would create the same sensation.
So if the weather is clear... don't stay in or near a city if you can get away. It will be worth the trip.
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If you meant at the time of the lunar eclipse, sure. But if you meant the other side of the moon from Earth (the so-called "dark side") in general, you would as often as not see the sun because the "dark side" of the moon is actually only completely dark at full moon. At new moon, looking straight out from the back of
What to do during the luna eclipse? (Score:2)
The Giant divine snake Ketu will start devouring the Moon. Don't eat or cook anything between 2 pm and 8pm CST. Discard all food prepared before the curse of Ketu (cool picture of the very Ketu himself!) [wikipedia.org]. Must take a purifying bath/shower after Ketu disgorges the Moon. Ideally you should write the prayers ( sold here [rudraksha-ratna.com]) to Ketu in a dried palm leaf and tie it around your forehead during the bath. Paper is an acceptable substitute. People who have lost their
40 odd comments and... (Score:2)
that's no moon...
Moon base (Score:2)
Lunar Eclipse, explained. (Score:2)
Inhabited!? (Score:3, Informative)
Alaska represent! I'll be yawning during this eclipse. Someone email me a picture.
Re: (Score:2)
Evil Clouds (Score:2)
Yay (Score:2)
From the inhabited west coast (Score:2)
The show will be effectively over by moonrise here on the Wet Coast. The weather forecast is totally dismal anyway.
Of the last three lunar eclipses visible in these parts, we were clouded out on 16 May 2003, but had fine shows on 28 October 2003 and 9 November 2004. I also saw the eclipse on 21 January 2000 from Toronto, while I was at school. Next for us: 28 August 2007.
I saw my first total solar eclipse [nasa.gov] last year from Turkey. Even though I knew exactly what was going on, it still gave me the creeps,
Re:Time information (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Time information (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Time information (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, while this one made it in time, wouldn't it be possible to put a "astronomy event" tag on submissions in firehose so that those submissions can be treated in priority and make it on time on the frontpage ?
Parent
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I can claim exactly the opposite experience once.
Cloud cover all day, and at the last moment there was just a partial break in the cover, just enough to observe the eclipse.
Simply beautiful.
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KEY TIMES FOR ECLIPSE
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Moon enters penumbra: 2018
Moon enters umbra: 2130
Totality begins: 2244
Mid-eclipse: 2321
Totality ends: 2358
Moon leave umbra: 0111
Moon leaves penumbra: 0224
(All times are in GMT)
Re:Time information (Score:5, Funny)
The following events take place between the hours of 8:00pm and 9:00pm EST:
Parent
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