A Super Blue Blood Moon rises over Çamlica Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey, 31 January 2018
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Yesterday, Jan. 31st, the full Moon passed directly through the shadow of Earth, producing a total lunar eclipse. The shadowed Moon turned a coppery shade of orange visible in Asia, Australia and much of North America. Chirag Upreti sends this picture from New York City:  "The eclipse was gorgeous," says Upreti. "As morning twilight illuminated the landscape, the Moon was already low on the horizon. What a stunning scene to absorb on a really cold morning! Just as I was taking the picture, an airplane passed over the Statue of Liberty and a sea gull photobombed the eclipsed Moon at the same time."
www.spaceweather.com On Wednesday, Jan. 31st, there's going to be a "Blue Moon"–the second full Moon in a calendar month. People who go outside to look may see a different hue: bright orange. This Blue Moon is going to be eclipsed, swallowed by copper-colored shadow of Earth for more than an hour. The eclipse will be visible from Asia, Australia, and most of North America: visibility map.  The bright orange color of the eclipse may be chalked up to volcanic activity–or rather, lack thereof. Atmospheric scientist Richard Keen from the University of Colorado explains: "During a lunar eclipse, most of the light illuminating the Moon passes through Earth's stratosphere where it is reddened by scattering," he says. "If the stratosphere is loaded with dust from volcanic eruptions, the eclipse will be dark. The cataclysmic explosion of Tambora in 1815, for instance, turned the Moon into a dark, starless hole in sky during two subsequent eclipses." But Earth is experiencing a bit of a volcanic lull. We haven't had a major volcanic blast since 1991 when Mt Pinatubo awoke from a 500 year slumber and sprayed ten billion cubic meters of ash, rock and debris into Earth's atmosphere. Recent eruptions have been puny by comparison and have failed to make a dent on the stratosphere. To Keen, the interregnum means one thing: "This eclipse is going to be bright and beautiful."  From "Two Centuries of Volcanic Aerosols Derived from Lunar Eclipse Records" by R. A. Keen Keen studies lunar eclipses because of what they can tell us about Earth's energy balance. A transparent stratosphere "lets the sunshine in" and actually helps warm the Earth below. "The lunar eclipse record indicates a clear stratosphere has contributed about 0.2 degrees to warming since the 1980s."
"Mt. Pinatubo finished a 110-year episode of frequent major eruptions that began with Krakatau in 1883," he says. "Since then, lunar eclipses have been relatively bright, and the Jan. 31st eclipse should be no exception." In the USA, the best time to look is during the hours before sunrise. Western states are favored: The Moon makes first contact with the core of Earth's shadow at 3:48 am Pacific Time, kicking off the partial eclipse. Totality begins at 4:52 am PST as Earth's shadow engulfs the lunar disk for more than an hour. "Maximum orange" is expected around 5:30 am PST. Easternmost parts of the USA will miss totality altogether. www.spaceweather.com The biggest and brightest full Moon of 2017 is coming tonight. It's a perigee "supermoon," almost 8% wider and 16% brighter than an average full Moon. Miguel Claro photographed the waxing orb (98% full) rising over lake Monsaraz in Portugal's Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve on Dec. 2nd:  Full moons vary in size because the Moon's orbit is not a circle, it's an ellipse: diagram. One side of the Moon's orbit, called "perigee," is 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other side, "apogee." This Sunday's Moon becomes full only 16 hours away from perigee, closer than any other full Moon of 2017.
Some people say you can't tell the difference between a supermoon and a regular Moon. A 16% difference in brightness can easily be masked by clouds or the glare of urban lights. Also, there are no rulers floating in the sky to measure lunar diameters. Hanging high overhead with no reference points to provide a sense of scale, one full Moon looks much like any other. There is no doubt, however, that supermoons are genuinely bigger than their ordinary cousins. To get the most out of Sunday's apparition, try to catch the Moon just as it is rising or setting. This will activate the Moon Illusion and make the perigee Moon of Dec. 3rd look super, indeed. www.spaceweather.com Only a few weeks ago, it seemed that the sun would be quiet and featureless when the Moon eclipsed it on Aug. 21st. Solar Minimum was in full swing. This weekend, however, the sun is welcoming the eclipse with a burst of renewed activity. "As the Moon approaches the sun, our nearest star is extending a friendly hand towards it," says Dave Eagle who sends this picture from Higham Ferrers, England:  "There is a huge prominence on the sun's eastern limb. If you are in the total eclipse path set your clock to greet this awesome spectacle on Monday," he says. And that's just for starters. In addition, a remarkably-long sunspot group is sprawling across the solar disk. AR2671 stretches 140,000 miles from end to end, almost twice as wide as the planet Jupiter. Bill Hrudey sends this picture of the behemoth from the Cayman Islands:  Amateur astronomers watching the eclipse through safe solar telescopes will have no trouble seeing the rugged edge of the Moon cut across this impressive sunspot, eclipsing one dark core after another. If we're really lucky, the sunspot will explode. AR2671 has a 'beta-gamma' magnetic field that harbors energy for M-class solar flares. Free: Solar Flare Alerts
www.spaceweather.com On Aug. 21, 2017, every square inch of the USA will experience a solar eclipse. In most places, the eclipse will be partial - that is, the Moon will cross the sun off-center, leaving a crescent shaped portion of the solar disk exposed. Is it really worth the trip to the path of totality when you can stay home and see the partial eclipse? Pulitzer prize winner Annie Dillard, who witnessed both types of eclipses in 1979, compared them as follows: "A partial eclipse is very interesting. It bears almost no relation to a total eclipse. Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane." Indeed, during the minutes of totality, the whole world changes. Saying that day turns into night barely scratches the surface of it. The shadow of the Moon lances down to Earth from a quarter million miles away. On one end is you; on the other end is a million square miles of dusty lunar terrain. You're connected, and you can feel the cold.  Image Credit & Copyright: Tunç Tezel (TWAN), Alkim Ün Darkness inside the path of totality has an alien quality. Because the shadow is only 70 miles wide, you can see daylight at the edges even while you stand in the dark core. This distant scattered light produces a slight reddish glow and unusual shadow effects. Many birds stop singing, daytime flower blossoms begin to close as if for the night, and bees return to their hives.
"What you see in an eclipse is entirely different from what you know," says Dillard, whose brilliant essay "Total Eclipse" is a must-read for anyone deciding whether to stay home ... or have their minds blown. www.spaceweather.com RT : 21 Apr 2017 NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured an incredible final image of Earth from 1.4 billion km away during its orbit of Saturn's rings. The space probe was facing Earth's Southern Atlantic Ocean, some 870 million miles (1.4 billion km) away, when the image of earth was captured on April 12, says NASA.  CassiniSaturn ✔ @CassiniSaturn See that dot between #Saturn's rings? That's us. All of us, in Cassini's last view of Earth, a billion miles away. https://go.nasa.gov/2o9bZAe :11:18 PM - 20 Apr 2017 In a zoomed-in version of the image, Earth's moon is also clearly visible, seeming to float alongside our bright planet in the dark vastness of space.  CassiniSaturn ✔ @CassiniSaturn Zoom into Cassini’s last view of Earth and you can also see the moon – a smaller, fainter dot to the left. https://go.nasa.gov/2o9bZAe :12:31 AM - 21 Apr 2017 The image marks Cassini's last view of Earth as the spacecraft prepares to end its mission by dramatically plunging into Saturn's atmosphere on September 15. The probe's 'Grand Finale' mission begins on Friday when the spacecraft will complete a close flyby of Saturn's moon, Titan - passing a mere 600 miles above its surface - before beginning its final set of 22 orbits between Saturn and its rings.
Cassini, a $3.2 billion mission from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency, launched in 1997 and has delivered unprecedented data of Saturn and its moons. You can see video from the mission here. It's not a total eclipse, but it's the next best thing. On Sunday, Feb. 26th, the Moon will pass in front of the southern hemisphere sun, covering as much as 99% of the solar disk. Astronomers call this an "annular" solar eclipse. Observers in parts of South America and Africa will be able to witness a magnificent "ring of fire" in the sky as crescent-shaped sunbeams dance on the ground below.
Watch this cool animation from ShadowandSubstance.com. www.spaceweather.com There's a lunar eclipse tonight, Feb. 10th, when the Moon spends almost 4 hours skimming through the shadow of Earth. If you've seen a lunar eclipse before, you might be expecting the Moon to turn red--the color of our planet's inner shadow. But no. The eclipsed Moon will look more like this:  Matt Wastell of Brisbane, Australia, took this picture during a similar lunar eclipse in April 2005. Earth's shadow darkens the upper left quadrant of the Moon, producing a gradient of luminosity across the lunar disk. Overall, the Moon remains silvery gray. Tonight's eclipse is "penumbral." In other words, the Moon will pass through the pale outskirts of our planets shadow (the penumbra) rather than directly through its red core (the umbra). Graphic artist Larry Koehn has created an excellent animation of the event. The best time to look is Friday night around 07:44 p.m. Eastern Time (00:44 UT Saturday). That's the time of maximum coverage when Earth's shadow creates a clear gradient of light and shadow across the lunar disk. Check out this global visibility map to see if you are in the eclipse zone:  According to folklore, a full Moon in February is called the "Snow Moon." For northerners, it often feels like the brightest Moon of the year as moonlight glistens off the white landscape. For a while on Friday night, the Snow Moon won't seem quite so bright.
www.spaceweather.com If you think tonight's full Moon seems a bit bigger and brighter than usual, you're right. It's a "perigee Moon," about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons we've seen earlier this year. The Moon's orbit is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer than the other (apogee): diagram. Perigee moons--a.k.a. "supermoons"--are not unusual.
This is the third month in a row we've had one. [photo gallery] www.spaceweather.com Today's full Moon is the biggest and brightest in almost 70 years. The best time to look in North America is before sunrise on Monday morning, while in Europe the best time is after sunset on the same day."The last time we had such a close full Moon was January 26, 1948," says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory, "and it won't happen again until November 25, 2034."  The waxing supermoon, photographed by Charles Chiofar of Buckley WA on Nov. 12th. Full moons vary in size because the Moon's orbit is not a circle, it's an ellipse: diagram. One side of the Moon's orbit, called "perigee," is 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other side, "apogee." This Monday's "supermoon" becomes full about 2 hours away from perigee, a coincidence that makes it as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons we have seen in the past.
But will we be able to tell the difference ... just by looking? A 30% difference in brightness can easily be masked by clouds or the glare of urban lights. Also, there are no rulers floating in the sky to measure lunar diameters. Hanging high overhead with no reference points to provide a sense of scale, one full Moon looks much like any other. "I think that the hype over the term 'supermoon' is a bit overblown," says Chester. "In my book every full Moon has something to offer!" To get the most out of Monday's apparition, try to catch the Moon just as it is rising or setting. This will activate the Moon Illusion and make the perigee Moon of Nov. 14th look super, indeed. www.spaceweather.com There's a full Moon this weekend. That means it's time to be alert for moonbows. Ian Glendinning spotted this one arcing over a lightning bolt in Northumberland UK:  "The moonbow framed the lightning nicely--a rare and beautiful coincidence," says Glendinning.
Everyone knows what lightning is. But a moonbow? It's the same as a rainbow with the Moon playing the role of Sun. Raindrops falling in the Northumberland night caught the rays of the waxing full Moon and spread them into a fan of prismatic color. Glendinning's exposure revealed something even more rare: a secondary moonbow. It's the faint 'bow arciing above the brighter primary. Primary rainbows are caused by single reflections inside raindrops; secondary bows are caused by double reflections. Watch for them both this weekend. www.spaceweather.com
According to folklore, tonight's full Moon is the Harvest Moon. For many observers, the usual luster of the silver orb will be dimmed by a spooky shadow. It's a "penumbral lunar eclipse."
The animation below, created by graphic artist Larry Koehn, shows the eclipse unfolding for nearly 4 hours on Sept 16th:
A penumbral eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the pale outskirts of Earth's shadow. It is much less dramatic than a "blood moon" total lunar eclipse. In fact, when observers are not alerted beforehand, they often do not realize an eclipse is underway. Nevertheless, the subtle shadow of Earth is visible to the naked eye if you know it's there.
The eclipse will be visible everywhere except the Americas: 
When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look up. There's a celestial triangle in the southern sky: the waxing full Moon, red Mars, and golden Saturn. Try to catch them before the sky fades completely black. The Moon and planets surrounded by twilight blue look extra-beautiful. [sky map]  Last night, for the first time in decades, the full Moon fell on the June solstice. Jeff Burkes of Chester County, Pennsylvania, watched the Moon herald the change of seasons, like so:  "It was an amazing sight to see," says Burkes. "And the filtering action of the clouds added a strawberry hue to the rising orb."
According to folklore, this was the Strawberry Moon. It gets its name from June-bearing strawberry plants, which have a short harvest season that begins about now. www.spaceweather.com |
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