Monday, August 27, 2007

Total Lunar Eclipse 28th August 2007

Tuesday the 28th of August there will be a total lunar eclipse over our sky. Fortunate for my Australian mates they are in the best place on earth to catch this show.

Below i posted timeline for some city in Oz that i got a buddy in. Ignore the degree field in the bracket, thats the altitude of the moon at that given time, Which if you wanna know is as simple as the horizon will be 0 degree and right on top your head will be 90degree, so as you can see in the time of totallity the moon will be hanging nice above your head (except for Perth)

CityPenumbral Eclipse BeginsPartial Eclipse BeginsTotal Eclipse BeginsGreatest EclipseTotal Eclipse EndsPartial Eclipse EndsPenumbral Eclipse Ends
Sydney (EST) 17:54 (5°) 18:51 (17°) 19:52 (29°) 20:37 (38°) 21:22 (46°) 22:24 (57°) 23:21 (64°)
Brisbane (EST) 17:54 (6°) 18:51 (18°) 19:52 (31°) 20:37 (40°) 21:22 (50°) 22:24 (61°) 23:21 (70°)
Melbourne (EST) 17:54 (1°) 18:51 (12°) 19:52 (23°) 20:37 (32°) 21:22 (40°) 22:24 (50°) 23:21 (57°)
Perth (WST) N/V N/V 17:52 (0°) 18:37 (7°) 19:22 (17°) 20:24 (30°) 21:21 (41°)


Penumbral eclipse is when the moon move into the Earth's penumbral shadow (the outer most shadow) and the moon will started to look a bit pale, partial eclipse is when part of the moon started to move into the Earth's umbral shadow (the inner darkest shadow) and total eclipse is when the entire moon is inside the Earth's umbral shadow.

You don't need any optical help to view a lunar eclipse, all you will need is a pair of good eyes and probably a good reclining chair so that you don't hurt your neck from looking up too long.

Unlike total solar eclipse the moon won't be totally disappear as it will "only" turn into a dark orange color. This is because the Earth doesn't do a very good job in blocking the sun's light since our atmosphere will scattered a little of that sunlight off to the moon, the blue ray will be absorb by our atmosphere and the reddish/orange will be scattered away and land on the surface of the moon.

And for those medanese we won't be having a VIP seat to this nature's show since when the moon rise in Medan (6.30pm) it will be well in totality already, we won't be able to catch the start of the eclipse but we will be able to see the end of it. Our viewing time will only be slightly different from those of Perth. You can use the Perth's time as a rules of thumb. And yes, the moon too does rise from the east.

I will do some photo shoot and will post it after. But too bad can't do one of the montage of the beginning till the end thing since the moon is still below my horizon for the start of the show.

ok, thats it folk. Hope you do spend some time watching it. The universe is putting on one of it majestic show, the least we can do is show some appreciation.

1 comment:

Wills said...

Thanks for the heads up. I shall be gazing up at the sky tomorrow night.