Since nobody has mentioned it there is gonna be a lunar eclipse tonight on the east coast starting at 9:30 and peaking at 11:15. I guess nobody mentioned it since the world away from the avrage macaddicts monitor glow is scary.
I caught one brief, hazy glimpse of the eclipse, about 20 minutes after totality ended, through a small break in the otherwise annoyingly relentless cloud cover in my area.
Can someone with a tad of astronomical cred (Shetline) give me a nice, brief explanation of why the shadow crept UP from BELOW the moon to cover it, but then slid to the RIGHT to reveal it again? Somebody I was working with last night asked about that and two of us tried to convince him that it was because the Earth upon which we stood had rotated so far around that we were seeing the moon from an angle that was almost 90º away from where the eclipse had started.
So were we right? Can anyone explain it better?
And for those who missed it, don't worry, it almost LOOKED like it was being obscured by clouds.
Can someone with a tad of astronomical cred (Shetline) give me a nice, brief explanation of why the shadow crept UP from BELOW the moon to cover it, but then slid to the RIGHT to reveal it again? Somebody I was working with last night asked about that and two of us tried to convince him that it was because the Earth upon which we stood had rotated so far around that we were seeing the moon from an angle that was almost 90º away from where the eclipse had started.
So were we right? Can anyone explain it better?
And for those who missed it, don't worry, it almost LOOKED like it was being obscured by clouds.
um were you facing the same direction as when it began? were you out there 6 hours?
I stayed up till 3 am here to see the lunar eclipse, and when I looked out, it... was... cloudy! Oh well. That is a cool picture.
I know that feeling. When we had the solar eclipse here in '99, we had perfect weather for the whole week before. But at time of the eclipse, it was cloudy and raining... It was a strange feeling watching TV in order to see what was going on over our heads.
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I've added a link to some extra info about viewing the eclipse to the home page of my astronomy web site, http://www.skyviewcafe.com/.
So were we right? Can anyone explain it better?
And for those who missed it, don't worry, it almost LOOKED like it was being obscured by clouds.
Originally posted by drewprops
Can someone with a tad of astronomical cred (Shetline) give me a nice, brief explanation of why the shadow crept UP from BELOW the moon to cover it, but then slid to the RIGHT to reveal it again? Somebody I was working with last night asked about that and two of us tried to convince him that it was because the Earth upon which we stood had rotated so far around that we were seeing the moon from an angle that was almost 90º away from where the eclipse had started.
So were we right? Can anyone explain it better?
And for those who missed it, don't worry, it almost LOOKED like it was being obscured by clouds.
um were you facing the same direction as when it began? were you out there 6 hours?
Originally posted by agent302
I stayed up till 3 am here to see the lunar eclipse, and when I looked out, it... was... cloudy! Oh well. That is a cool picture.
I know that feeling. When we had the solar eclipse here in '99, we had perfect weather for the whole week before. But at time of the eclipse, it was cloudy and raining... It was a strange feeling watching TV in order to see what was going on over our heads.