Full Lunar Eclipse for the Americas on Wednesday

KingArthur10 writes "It will be the last lunar eclipse until December 2010, and it should be spectacular. Shades of turquoise and red will pour over the moon's surface as it moves into the Earth's shadow around 8:43pm EST. As NASA reports: 'Transiting the shadow's core takes about an hour. The first hints of red appear around 10 pm EST (7 pm PST), heralding a profusion of coppery hues that roll across the Moon's surface enveloping every crater, mountain and moon rock, only to fade away again after 11 pm EST (8 pm PST). No special filter or telescope is required to see this spectacular event. It is a bright and leisurely display visible from cities and countryside alike. While you're watching, be alert for another color: turquoise. Observers of several recent lunar eclipses have reported a flash of turquoise bracketing the red of totality ... The source of the turquoise is ozone.' So, all of you amateur astronomers need to get out there and take pictures. It might be worthwhile sharing them on sites like SpaceWeather or Flickr so that our Asian, European, African, and Australian brethren can witness the sight as well."

Turquoise?

I witnessed a total eclipse in 2007, but noticed no turquoise. I'm pretty sure I know why though, living as I do in New Zealand...

Re:Turquoise?

Well, they are talking about Imperial turquoise. We, on the other hand, use metric turqoise.

Re:

Funny, it's never looked Bluish to me!

Netcraft confirms it...

The moon is dying!

Better get ready...

Yikes, that snuck up on me. I'd better start collecting them now if I want to have 100 virgins ready for the sacrifice.

Re:Better get ready...

well, you've certainly come to the right place to get them.

Re:Better get ready...

Hi there. I don't usually post but, as a Dark Malevolent Entity myself, I thought I'd clear a little something up.

See, we Shapeless Horrors really, how do I put this delicately, well, we don't want your kind. You know, the whole living in mom's basement, pale and pimply, obese, comic book type virgin. Your souls really simply don't do it for us.

I mean, sure, you meet the technical qualification of virginity, but there's just not the same flair in you guys as in, say, a young and beautiful maiden type virgin. That's what we Unspeakable Things from the World Beyond Sanity are looking for.

If some schmuck sacrifices a hundred Slashdotters, do you think I'll actually appear before him, much less do him any favors? No. At best, I fart in his general direction, at worst, I dismember him out of spite. Believe me, low grade sacrifices are more common than you'd think.

At first, it was fun to experiment with you geek types, but the heartburn afterwards just isn't worth it. Ever get indigestion from souls that haven't seen the sun in months? Not fun.

Please, just keep this in mind this eclipse: If you plan on summoning me or any other Terrors from Outside the Realm of Human Comprehension, do us a favor and use only the highest grade virgin Anyway, I look forward to meeting and eating some of you.

Warmest wishes,
D. Cheney

Re:Better get ready...

Warmest wishes, D. Cheney

So you're comparing the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, to the infernal demons from the lowest, blackest depths of the abyss of Hell? Man, that's pretty harsh. I think you owe those demons an apology.

Re:

Damn! You got a video card? I settled for extra free cheese on my pizza.

Re:Better get ready...

What is this "sun" that you speak of?

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, it's a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

Translation

for those of us in the Northeast it will be raining

Re:

Alas, the forecast thus far for the San Francisco Bay Area is currently "mostly cloudy" for Wednesday as well. However, should we get a lucky break with any moments of clear sky, the Astronomy department at City College of San Francisco will host anyone w

The "IT"

... as the it moves into the Earth's shadow...
 
Oh no! The IT has returned! It shall be moving into earth's shadow and then consume us all!!! First to go will be /. editor's who don't bother proofreading.

Re:The "IT"

First to go will be /. editor's who don't bother proofreading.

Followed in short order by anonymous cowards who don't bother proofreading.

Visible in Europe, Africa too

It'll just a bit later in the night here.

Re:Visible in Europe, Africa too

Thanks for that - I'd just assumed it'd be in the Americas from what I read until your comment. If I'm really determined, I might go straight to bed when I get home on Tuesday, and try to wake up for 3am or so (I get up at 6 for work anyway), but I doubt that will happen. If anyone else in the UK (and most of western Europe) is interested, here's what I found out about times from Alpha Galileo [alphagalileo.org] :

It begins at 0035 GMT when the Moon enters the lightest part of the Earth's shadow, the penumbra. Soon after the Moon will have a slight yellowish hue. At 0142 GMT the Moon starts to enter the dark core of the Earth's shadow, the umbra. At 0301 GMT the Moon will be completely within the umbra - the 'total' part of the eclipse has begun. This is the time when it should have an obvious red colour. Mid-eclipse is at 0326 GMT and the total phase ends at 0352 GMT. At 0509 GMT the Moon leaves the umbra and the eclipse ends when the Moon leaves the penumbra at 0617 GMT.

From TFA:

> Editor's note: This story is written for an American audience, but not only
> Americans can see the eclipse. People in Europe and western Africa are also
> favored. International maps and timetables may be found here.

Clarification and Full Details

NASA [nasa.gov] has the scoop on everything, including pretty pictures and charts of when you can see what based on timezone :)

Correction

It will be the last TOTAL lunar eclipse until December 2010

Plenty of eclipses [wikipedia.org] before 2010, just not total ones.

Photography suggestions

Use a long lens. A telescope is handy; 300mm will be about right to shoot the Moon rising through the trees or other scenery, as it will be doing here during the eclipse. Real closeups will need 1000 to 2000mm focal length.

Bracket heavily. During the last good eclipse I shot from 1/2 to 10 seconds during totality at f/8.

Enjoy. The weather forecast here (Vancouver) is not favourable. The eclipse last August was almost completely clouded out too. Sigh.

...laura

Re:can anyone give a real schedule?

Reading comprehension FTW! It takes about 3 hours for the entire eclipse to pass, and the middle hour is the period of total eclipse, referred to in TFA as "Transiting the shadow's core".

Re:

I wish there were some coverage of this by my local weather channels, there's no mention of an eclipse and usually they feature these when they're coming up. The weather report is partly cloudy, maybe they're waiting for their crystal ball to clear up a b

Re:can anyone give a real schedule?

(I know, meteorologists don't study meteors)

Ah, but didja know why?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meteor [reference.com]

The streaks of light we sometimes see in the night sky and call meteors were not identified as interplanetary rocks until the 19th century. Before then, the streaks of light were considered only one of a variety of atmospheric phenomena, all of which bore the name meteor. Rain was an aqueous meteor, winds and storms were airy meteors, and streaks of light in the sky were fiery meteors. This general use of meteor survives in our word meteorology, the study of the weather and atmospheric phenomena. Nowadays, astronomers use any of three words for rocks from interplanetary space, depending on their stage of descent to the Earth ...

meteor
1471, "any atmospheric phenomenon," from M.Fr. meteore (13c.), from M.L. meteorum (nom. meteora), from Gk. ta meteora "the celestial phenomena," pl. of meteoron, lit. "thing high up," neut. of meteoros (adj.) "high up," from meta- "over, beyond" (see meta-) + -aoros "lifted, hovering in air," related to aeirein "to raise" (see aorta). Specific sense of "fireball, shooting star" is attested from 1593. Atmospheric phenomena were formerly classified as aerial meteors (wind), aqueous meteors (rain, snow, hail), luminous meteors (aurora, rainbows), and igneous meteors (lightning, shooting stars). Meteoric in the figurative sense of "transiently brilliant" is from 1836.

Re:

You guys schedule your storms? We Coloradoans need to get with the times; we still just wait for ours to happen sporadically.

Re:Times are off

The eclipse lasts over 3 hours (8:43pm to 12:09am). It's totality, when the moon passes through the umbra (i.e. the core of the shadow as the summary quotes), that lasts for an hour lasts from 10pm to 11pm. More info on lunar eclipses at http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html [mreclipse.com]