The Moon During a Total Lunar Eclipse
Video Credit:
Wang Letian &
Zhang Jiajie
How does the Moon's appearance change during a total lunar eclipse?
The featured time-lapse video was digitally processed to keep
the Moon bright and centered during the 5-hour
eclipse of 2018 January 31.
At first the
full moon is visible because
only a full moon can undergo a
lunar eclipse.
Stars move by in the background because the Moon orbits
the Earth during
the eclipse.
The circular shadow
of the Earth is then seen moving across the Moon.
The light blue hue of the shadow's edge is related to
why Earth's sky is blue, while the deep red hue of
the shadow's center is related to
why the Sun appears red when near the horizon.
Tomorrow, people living from southeast Asia, across
the Pacific,
to the southwest Americas may
get to see
a Blood Supermoon
Total Lunar Eclipse.
Here the term blood refers to the (likely) red
color of the fully eclipsed Moon,
while the term
supermoon indicates the Moon's slightly high angular size --
due to being relatively close to the Earth in its
slightly elliptical orbit.