Lunar Eclipse 2008: A Guide

Posted on 18 February 2008 · 5,771 views · 263 words.

This Wednesday there will be a total eclipse of the Moon. Totality will last for 51 minutes and will be visible throughout Europe, North America, the Pacific region and Northern Africa. The show kicks off at 00:35 GMT when the Earth’s penumbra touches the limb of the Moon. Totality occurs at 03:26 GMT. This will be the last total lunar eclipse until December 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqGR2-pZieU

Update: new post shows eclipse from perspective of the Moon and Sun [Link].

During Lunar eclipses the Moon does not go completely black, but rather turns a nice deep red. Last year’s March eclipse was particularly good as the weather was very clear. We can only hope for the same this year.

For more information you can visit NASA’s eclipse page, or check out their handy, one-page guide which I have embedded below.

The embedded video was created using Starry Night at 300x normal speed and the photo shown is one my wife took last year. Nice isn’t it?

This post was written by:

ttfnRob - who has written 557 posts on Orbiting Frog.

I am studying for my PhD in Astronomy at Cardiff University in the UK. Star formation is my main area of research but really I like anything to do with space, science and the internet.

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2 Comments For This Post

mannygee says:
February 20th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Nice Animation
ttfnRob says:
February 21st, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Glad everybody has been so positive about this post - thanks for all the links!

4 Trackbacks For This Post

Demony wokó? mnie » Things to see in the sky tonight says:
February 20th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
[...] morning’s lunar eclipse which has been mentioned by Dave, Tom, Will, Phil, The Jodcast, and Rob. The eclipse is visible between 01:43 am UT and 05:09 am UT tomorrow morning so requires an early [...]
Lunar Eclipse from Another Perspective at Orbiting Frog says:
February 20th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
[...] my previous post, detailing tonight’s Lunar Eclipse (the last until December 2010), I included a YouTube video [...]
The Apochrypha » Under a Blood Red Moon says:
February 20th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
[...] thats right the moon turns red. You can read more about it at Orbiting Frog who as wrote about it here and here. There is no point in me going any further into it as he does it so well! Tags: [...]
derivative work » Blog Archive » tonight only — utterly total eclipse of the absolutely full moon says:
February 20th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
[...] or, for the subscription-impaired, online at the S&T website. Also check out bad astronomy and orbiting frog for [...]