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Wednesday's Lunar Eclipse Easily Visible

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Chris Stephan

Published: February 19, 2008

AVON PARK — This Wednesday evening provides Floridians with the last total eclipse of the Moon that will be visible from our part of the world until Dec. 20-21, 2010.

If the weather cooperates, Wednesday's eclipse should be a spectacular event.

An "Eclipse Star Party" will be held from 8:30-11 p.m. at the Avon Park Middle School for all students, their families and faculty. Six telescopes will be set up and binoculars will also be available.

A total lunar eclipse occurs because the sun, the Earth and the Moon are aligned in a straight line, with the Earth taking the in-between position. As sunlight passes the Earth, the shadow of the Earth is cast on the Moon. The shadow will slowly move across the disc of the Moon, almost but not quite hiding the Moon's surface features.

Through the telescopes, because of the magnification, one can see the shadow slowly moving across the surface feature, such as a crater or mountain. This actually is the Moon moving in space, in its orbit around the Earth.

Binoculars give a lower magnification but a wider field of view, so the background sky is visible. This gives a nice three-dimensional effect. You do not need a telescope or binoculars to observe the eclipse.

Before the eclipse begins, the full moon will be lighting up the sky in the east.

Lunar eclipses only occur at full moon phase, but not every full moon. There is a full moon at least once per month, yet our next total eclipse isn't until December 2010. This is because the moon goes through seven movements while orbiting Earth. Most of the time the Earth is not directly in front of the moon, but a bit off-centered.

One of the fun things is that one doesn't know what color the moon will be in eclipse. The color depends on how much microscopic particles are in our upper atmosphere. These particles come from things such as volcanic ash, smoke, dust and ice crystals.

The denser the particles, the more colorful the eclipse will be. The particles act like a prism, refracting the light. On years when there have been a lot of particles in the upper atmosphere, the eclipse can be orange to brick red, very stunning. If there is not much particulate matter, the eclipse can be more smoky color, or even a deep chocolate color. This color effect is one of the things that makes viewing the eclipse memorable.

A total lunar eclipse is completely safe to observe. Even observing a bright full moon through the telescopes will not hurt the eye. This isn't like looking at an eclipse of the sun, where the observer can go blind without a special filter.

The eclipse begins at 8:43 p.m. eastern time. The total part of the eclipse lasts from 10 p.m. through 10:52 p.m. Mid-totality occurs at 10:26 p.m. The moon comes out of the eclipse at 12:09 a.m.

Anyone in the area can go out in their yard and watch this event.

For more information on the eclipse, go to www.skyandtelescope.com.

Chris Stephan is a science teacher at Avon Park Middle School

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