Drink in the lack of moonshine: tomorrow

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 12:19

Your IT - Entertainment

Tomorrow morning, the 16th of June, the moon will turn red thanks to Chilean volcanic ash as it goes through a major celestial event: a lunar eclipse.

Moonshine: it's known as home-made, high-strength alcohol, and it's known as sunlight reflected from the moon.

With the moon due to turn "blood" red during the pre-dawn of tomorrow morning, some may well be reaching for the moonshine if they're up early enough and somehow missed all of today's news regarding tomorrow's eclipse.

Once, such celestial events caused earlier, less civilised humans a chance to freak out or blame divine interference, but in our modern and educated times, we simply know it's the movement of celestial bodies that occasionally get in each other's visual paths, sometimes causing eclipses.

Fairfax Media's Sydney Morning Herald reports that, in Australia, the lunar eclipse will begin at 3.25am, and will be in 'totality' at 5.22am, with the entire spectacle set to last for a rather nicely rounded 100 minutes in total, which is reported to be 'the longest lunar eclipse' since another nicely rounded date: the year 2000.

iTWire's science specialist, William Atkins, already wrote about the topic a couple of days ago, presaging all of today's coverage, although giving times in GMT, letting people around the world reading convert that into their own timezones.

Sadly for Australians it means an early morning to watch a dark moon rising, instead of being sometime this evening, which would have been easier for Aussies to enjoy, but given the difficulties in moving heaven, the moon and earth, we won't be appealing to God or the Universe to change things to suit our antipodean schedule.

However many people are early risers anyway, and with a golden (or reddish) hour between 5.30am and 6.30am being the prime lunar-eclipse viewing time, there's plenty of opportunity for lunar-gazers to get a fix of a once-in-a-blue-moon red moon.

Once concern for some around the world is the chance of cloud or rain interrupting the view, but at least the lunar eclipse will be visible somewhere on planet Earth, and will be undoubtedly filmed by someone, so if you miss it, at least you'll get to see it on television.

Still, there's nothing like seeing history live in person as our Solar System does its stuff, so what the hell: get up early, and see all the reddish lunar looniness, most likely with sleep-deprived red blood-shot eyes!