{"id":1530,"date":"2014-04-06T00:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-04-06T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=1530"},"modified":"2014-03-30T17:15:07","modified_gmt":"2014-03-30T17:15:07","slug":"the-western-hemisphere-gets-a-total-lunar-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/06\/the-western-hemisphere-gets-a-total-lunar-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"The western hemisphere gets a total lunar eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><em style=\"font-size: 13px;\">\u00a1SkyCaramba! Weekly astronomy blog for the week ending April 12, 2014<\/em><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>The first of four consecutive total lunar eclipses happens the night of April 14 to 15 for most of the Americas and the Pacific. Parts of the Americas, the Pacific, and Australia get part of the event as the moon is rising or setting.<\/p>\n<div align=center>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fssuPEikzVw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<p>The very beginning of the eclipse is at 04:53 Universal Time on April 15. That will be 11:53pm on the 14<sup>th<\/sup> in the Central Time Zone of the United States. As the eclipse starts, the moon passes into the penumbra or outer part of Earth\u2019s shadow. It will be several minutes\u2014maybe more than a half hour\u2014before you see the lighting difference.<\/p>\n<p>As an orange hue slowly sweeps across the moon, the moon heads to the inner part of Earth\u2019s shadow which it enters at 05:58. This is when the partial phase starts. You won\u2019t have any trouble noticing the dark area crossing the moon. Every minute or two, you\u2019ll see the dark area called the umbra is covering more of the lunar surface.<\/p>\n<p>Keep watching until 07:06 and the moon will be completely in the umbra. That\u2019s the darkest part of Earth\u2019s shadow. Now, totality begins. It lasts until 08:24. Even during the total phase, you may see that one side of the moon is darker than the other and that the darkest area sweeps across the moon. That happens because even when the moon is deepest in the earth\u2019s shadow, some sunlight refracts through Earth\u2019s atmosphere and reaches the moon.<\/p>\n<p>As the moon emerges from our planet\u2019s shadow, you\u2019ll see a reversal of what has happened so far. From 08:24 to 09:33, the umbra crosses the moon and leaves the lunar disk. Then until 10:37, the penumbra crosses the disk and leaves too.<\/p>\n<p>If you could be on the moon during a total lunar eclipse, you\u2019d see the sun passing behind Earth. During penumbral phase, the sun would stick out from behind Earth. On any part of the moon that is in the earth\u2019s umbra, Earth would completely cover the sun. But at all times, there\u2019d be an orange-red ring of sunlight refracting through the earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>For reasons that aren\u2019t entirely understood, you may see colors other than orange or yellow crossing the moon during an eclipse. A few eclipses have been very deep red. Others have been greenish. Everything from clouds, to industrial pollution, to volcanic ash could be affecting sunlight on its way through the air to the moon. This phenomenon isn\u2019t predictable. You should look at the eclipse yourself just in case it\u2019s unusual.<\/p>\n<p>During the next year-and-a-half, there will be three more total lunar eclipses: October 8, 2014, April 4, 2015, and September 28, 2015. If for whatever reason you can&#8217;t see the one this month, I hope you can make the best of the next three chances.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a1SkyCaramba!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov\/OH\/OH2014.html\">http:\/\/eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov\/OH\/OH2014.html<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeanddate.com\/eclipse\/lunar\/2014-april-15\">http:\/\/www.timeanddate.com\/eclipse\/lunar\/2014-april-15<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.skyandtelescope.com\/observing\/highlights\/237963491.html\">http:\/\/www.skyandtelescope.com\/observing\/highlights\/237963491.html<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/earthsky.org\/tonight\/total-lunar-eclipse-for-the-americas-on-night-of-april-14-15\">http:\/\/earthsky.org\/tonight\/total-lunar-eclipse-for-the-americas-on-night-of-april-14-15<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/sky-events\/2014\/02\/watch-a-total-lunar-eclipse-april-15\">http:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/sky-events\/2014\/02\/watch-a-total-lunar-eclipse-april-15<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first of four consecutive total lunar eclipses happens the night of April 14 to 15 for most of the Americas and the Pacific. Parts of the Americas, the Pacific, and Australia get part of the event as the moon is rising or setting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[141,140,142,485],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1534,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions\/1534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}