Get ready for a 'blood moon'

[Vertigo]

Weather permitting we are due a total lunar eclipse on the night of the 27/28th September which should be visible from Eastern America through to Western Africa and Europe.

Unlike the April lunar eclipse this will be a total one in which the full moon should turn a deep red colour. In the UK I think it goes total around 2am and last for about an hour. Of course in the UK we probably won't be able to see it for cloud

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astr...for-septembers-total-lunar-eclipse-091420155/ (note this is an American page and all timings are relevant only for America)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...-moon-of-the-year-on-same-night-10476716.html (slightly more tabloid report!)

Just thought I mention it as a date for your diary.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I, oddly enough, saw a vivid blood red moon a few days ago as it was rising over Leyton (and looked huge, but as we all know is exactly the same size). I don't think there were massive fires over East London at the time...

It was definitely not a total lunar eclipse though, which is what you mean of course!

 

[Vertigo]

I've seen that as well before. I think you sometimes get it just as the moon is rising. Maybe when it's close to the Earth's shadow but not actually in eclipse a significant amount of the light falling on the moon has been through our atmosphere and it gets filtered/refracted (can't remember which it is ) in much the same way as in an eclipse.

 

[Extollager]

I'm watching it now (9:30 pm, Sunday evening, Sept. 27) in North Dakota -- excellent viewing conditions; my first time to view a lunar eclipse through my beginner's telescope (Orion Starblast). The moon is completely in shadow. What pleases me the most is how you can see pinprick stars against the blackness -- right by the rusty full moon -- which normally would be invisible or almost impossible to see due to the glare.

(I saw the solar eclipse that was a few days before the transit of Venus three years ago, and the transit itself, with this same telescope. It's right for my needs.)

 

[REBerg]

I've got it in my Celestron. Noticed the starfield around the orange moon. Looked like the clouds were going to get in the way earlier today, but the skies cleared in time.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It was very misty here

 

[Vertigo]

Unfortunately it was totally clouded out up here in the Highlands. Booo.

 

[HareBrain]

Aarfg! I keep seeing the same image of the moon behind Glastonbury Tor used as an illustration of this, such as on BBC News just now. It's yellow-orange, but since it's on the horizon it can't be in eclipse -- the eclipse didn't start till it was high in the sky in the UK.

(As for me, it was a perfectly clear night round here but I forgot to set my alarm! I woke at five to see it had gone back to white, but with a big shadowy bite taken out of it.)

 

[The Judge]

Lovely clear night here. *smug, smug*

We read that it would start at around 1am BST, but after repeated traipsing to the kitchen to peer out the window there (the only one with a view of it) we decided either the news was wrong, or someone had a different definition of "start" from us, because we didn't even get a hint of shadow until 2ish, when it was more like a veiled darkening of a biggish area than an actual slice taken out of it, though the slicing came not long after. We kept going to look at intervals, but as it moved towards totality the blessed moon crept closer towards next door's roof** so we were having to squash ourselves at the corner of the window to see it, and then it vanished. Cue heated discussion about whether I was really suggesting we go and stand outside at 3am in our jim-jams. The argument in favour won, naturally.

Anyway, we saw it red (though it was more a pale terracotta rust colour than blood; very old dried blood, possibly) with a flaring at the bottom edge, but oddly enough viewed through binoculars (no fancy telescope here) it was rather wishy-washy and not terribly interesting, and it was bolder and more spooky seen through my ordinary glasses. It didn't appear spectacularly big, though, which was disappointing. But I've never seen so many stars, nor seen them shine so brightly. The other disappointment was no success with taking a photo, as we hadn't got a tripod set up.



** not literally -- poetic licence -- just in case anyone thinks I'm even less science-literate than I actually am

 

[Extollager]

Viewing the eclipse with my telescope, I enjoyed the effect of the moon as a globular volume instead of the usual flat disc. The earth's shadow had a graded quality that brought out the moon as a ball rather than a shield.

 

[kythe]

My son and I went to our local university for a free public event. Astronomy students and an amateur astronomy club had set out telescopes and were talking to people about the lunar eclipse. It was really fun spending a couple of hours there learning astronomy from some very educated people. I have always enjoyed events like this.

For some reason I had thought the eclipse would last 10 minutes, but that is a solar eclipse. In a lunar eclipse, the moon appears opposite the sun and passes through the Earth's shadow.

We had to wait a few minutes past the official sunset to actually see the moon rising due to a mountain over the horizon. It was already eclipsed as it came into view, but didn't appear red until it was much higher in the sky and the eclipse was near total. Some of the astronomers had their telescopes connected to computers to film the entire event. The moon looked much redder through the telecope lenses and on screen than with the naked eye.

 

[Parson]

It was beautiful here in Iowa. Clear night, not much "city" light. The moon was definitely blood red for a while, but you would have to compare it to some blood smeared on a glass. I took a few pictures, but they aren't much compared to a lot you can see on line.

 

[Kylara]

My dad got his mega lense out last night and is currently getting the pictures onto his computer. Will report back later, hopefully with pictures! looked great from here so fingers crossed for some great pictures

 

[farntfar]

Caught it just after the full eclipse, because I missed the alarm.
It was quite clear and you could really see the full ball effect, rather than just a disc and it was a light orange colour.

I took some photos with my fairly basic camera so they're rather grainy and nothing else in the photo to give it scale.
It was larger than normal but not massively so.