TAG | See last partial lunar eclipse of 2008 on August 16-17 |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Saturday, 16 August 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 In a total lunar eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and Moon are directly aligned as the Earth is directly between the Sun and the Moon—thus blocking out all the Sun’s rays normally cast upon the Moon. However, in a partial lunar eclipse, the Earth is not in a straight line between the Sun and the Moon, so it does not block out all of the Sun’s rays from the Moon. In this case, a little over three-fourths of the Moon (approximately 80%) will be hidden from view during this partial lunar eclipse. Observers on Earth will see a Moon that is partly light and partly dark, with hints of colors that depend on terrestrial conditions. According to the NASA website “Partial Lunar Eclipse of August 16,” “The Moon’s trajectory takes it through the northern umbral shadow, resulting in a partial eclipse that lasts 3 hours 8 minutes. At mid-eclipse the Moon's northern limb passes 5.9 arc-minutes outside the umbra's northern edge. The Moon's southern edge is then 16.5 arc-minutes from the shadow's centre.” According to the NASA website, the penumbral eclipse begins at 18:24:49 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or 9:24:49 p.m. Saturday evening in Cairo, Africa, a very good location to view the partial lunar eclipse. At this time, the Moon enters the lightest part of the Earth's shadow, the penumbra. Soon, the Moon begin to take on a slight yellowish hue, shades will differ depending on where you are in the world. Convert from GMT time to your local time by going to one of the Time Converter programs on the Web. For instance, TimeZoneConverter.com has a time converter at its website. (I will use this GMT converter to convert from GMT to local time of Cairo, Africa) Times for the rest of the eclipse appears on page three. See an animation of the event, too. |
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