Astronomy

This saturday night people will be able to see an astronomical wonder that few people can see, a lunar eclipse. A total lunar eclips will be occuring that night. The moon is said to rise in ful eclipse at 5:30 p.m. and will slowly emerge from the eclips by 7 p.m. The last lunar eclipse that occured in North America was in October of 2004. We can expect to see another eclipse on August 28th that will occur in the daytime instead of the night.

A lunar eclipse is a phenomenon that occurs when the Earth passes between the sun and the moon. Because of this position the Earth blocks the sun’s light from reaching the moon, which causes it to become a shadow. “It’s the ultimate amateur astronomer’s event,” said Michael Bakich, senior editor of Astronomy magazine. “You don’t need any equipment. It’s unlike a solar eclipse, when people are always saying, ‘Don’t look directly at the sun.’

“And lunar eclipses give you plenty of time to watch. Even with this one, you’ll get an hour and a half to watch the moon coming out of the eclipse.” “The Greeks used lunar eclipses to prove the world was round,” said Monty Robson, of the John J. McCarthy Observatory in New Milford. While it’s true that many astronomers know many things about the moon they are still able to learn even more things during a lunar eclipse.

They use infrared cameras to chart changes in the temperature of the surface of the moon, which is something they can’t do when the sun is shining directly on the moon’s surface because there’s too much light. They can also use an eclipse to learn about the particles that are high in the Earth’s stratosphere. Where there’s a normal amount of fine dust high above the Earth, the moon will appear coppery-red in eclipse. But when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, there was a huge amount of volcanic ash in the sky and “you could not see the moon,” Chester said.

Robson, of the McCarthy Observatory, said the dark red color of the moon will be caused by refracted light that leaks out around the edges of the Earth and shines on the moon. “All the blue light gets refracted away,” he said. “The moon can be blood red.” The weather, which will be turning from a messy mix of snow and sleet to heavy rain, should clear enough Saturday to at least let people glimpse the moon through clumps of clouds, said meteorologist Bill Jacquemin of the Connecticut Weather Center in Danbury. “If you look to the east as the moon rises, you should be able to see it,” Jacquemin said. “It won’t be perfectly clear. There will still be a scattering of clouds. But it won’t be wet.”