Lunar Eclipse this Wednesday!

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Photo from http://www.natskies.com/2018/01/24/first-blue-moon-lunar-eclipse/

Though lunar eclipses are slow and unspectacular when compared to the much rarer and sexier solar eclipses, they're still pretty cool! There will be one this Wednesday, early in the morning, westward, over the Pacific until the moon sets! I suspect the moon will look extraordinarily red, as the light from all the earth's sunrises and sunsets (Thanks, Neil!) reflects off the moon and back to our eyes! Additionally, since the moon will be setting, the light will be passing through a great deal of atmosphere and will be even more deeply reddened as a result, though this added effect may not be noticeable. (This happens for the same reason that the sun gets red at sunrise/set; wikipedia "Rayleigh Scattering" if you wanna learn more!).

 And if you're into all the crazy verbiage that has attached itself to moon events you could call this a "super blue blood moon" because the moon will be relatively close (super), it's the second full moon of the month (blue) and in the earth's shadow (blood).

 Also noteworthy is that the moon will be passing through the bottom part of Earth's shadow, meaning the top of the moon will likely be darker than the bottom... It'll be interesting to see if this turns out to be the case!

 The eclipse will start at 3:30amish and end before 7am. Smack in the middle will be 5:30am, when I plan on waking up and checking it out over the Pacific!

Lastly, pop quiz! If you were on the moon, what type of eclipse would you see?

Lunar Eclipse Diagram Credit: Sky & Telescope

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