Share

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Penumbral Lunar Elcipse - November 28th, 2012

Did you know we were able to view a Lunar Eclipse yesterday, November 28th, 2012?

It is called penumbral lunar eclipse.


Penumbral means partial.  In this eclipse, the earth is between the moon and the sun, so we are able to see the earth's shadow on the moon. 


According to http://aa.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/aa_lunecl.pl, (in Salt Lake City, Utah) we could view the start of the eclipse at 5:12 am. 


I was not able to see the eclipse yesterday morning, but did see the moon.  Such a beautiful moon set and rise!

My dad is always up early for work(4:30-5:00 am).  I called him around 06:30 am to make sure he could see the moon setting in the clouds.  He said he sat out on their front porch before going to work to enjoy the light of the full moon.  It was a magical view.  

If you were able to see the moon last night you could see a rainbow around the moon called a halo. A halo or ring around the moon is caused by ice crystals (cirrus or cirrostratus clouds) in the atmosphere.  The ice crystals are a hexagon shape that reflect the moon light (sunlight on the moon), so therefore causes a ring and sometimes a rainbow around the moon. Jupiter was also out tonight and was directly above the moon when I looked up at the sky tonight around 19:00.  


I made sure to take a photo of the moon this morning, (11/29/2012) because I could not get a good one after I got home from work last night.  I think it was hiding behind the clouds.  But this morning you could still see a small halo with Jupiter to the lower right.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my day that I forget to look up to enjoy the beauty around me. 
I am so glad I looked up this time. 

If you want to read more about this or see photo's check out some of these links:

  
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/astronomy/

http://earthsky.org/tonight/smallest-full-moon-of-year-and-penumbral-eclipse-november-28

 http://www.space.com/18636-penumbral-lunar-eclipse-2012-photos.html


http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/LunarEclipse.php

 http://earthsky.org/space/what-makes-a-halo-around-the-moon

 

No comments:

Post a Comment