Partial lunar eclipse early Friday will be longest in 580 years
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Look up, night owls.
A partial lunar eclipse is taking place early Friday, and astronomers say it will be the longest one in several centuries, lasting almost 3 ½ hours.
Weather permitting, skywatchers in many different regions of the world — including North America, South America, Eastern Asia, Australia and across the Pacific Ocean — will be able to catch at least part of the show.
Lunar eclipses can be lengthy, but this event's total duration, clocked at 3 hours and 28 minutes, makes it the longest in 580 years, according to the Holcomb Observatory in Indianapolis.
Lunar eclipses occur when Earth slips between the sun and the moon, creating a celestial alignment that blocks sunlight from falling onto the lunar surface. As this happens, the moon typically darkens and turns a reddish hue, an effect caused by Earth's atmosphere, which scatters light from the sun and casts it onto the face of the moon.
The moon will touch the Earth's outer shadow shortly after 1 a.m. ET, but the sky show will officially begin a little after 2 a.m. ET. NASA said the best views will likely come at around the peak of the eclipse, which means setting an alarm tonight for around 4 a.m. ET, or 1 a.m. PT.
As it moves into Earth's shadow, it will appear to the naked eye as though a bite has been taken out of the moon, according to NASA. At around 3:45 a.m. ET, the rusty-red coloring will become visible, lasting around 30 minutes and gradually fading following the eclipse peak.
Though the event is a partial lunar eclipse, NASA said up to 99.1 percent of the moon will move into the darkest part of Earth's shadow, or what's known as the umbra, making it an "almost total" lunar eclipse.
Unlike with solar eclipses, there's no need to wear protective eyewear when witnessing a lunar eclipse and it can be viewed safely with the naked eye.
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Got up to look at it, partly cloudy but got to see changes. Earlier Was a bright night right now is darker.
Was going to watch it and get some photos, but alas it has been raining steady for the last 7 hours....
I wanted to get photos but there's only been rain and drizzly skies.. No flooding, thankfully.
Evening. Skies are clear here and just looks all normal to me 5 minutes ago. But I have probably had a squizz a bit to late..had a koala for company grunting away in the gumtree... can't get much more Aussie than that..🐨🐨
By the time you could see the moon down under, it was already over with.
It was cloudy here last night. No chance of photos, plus I have to work today so I wasn't going to stay up all night for photos.
I thought they said Friday night not Friday morning! So I missed it
It started around 2:20 a.m. and didn't finish until about almost 6:00 a.m.
I should have looked when I got up to tinkle around 3:00 a.m. but saw it in the last stages when I got up around 4:50 a.m.
At around 3 am it had just started into the umbra and it had a notch at that time, around 4 am it was as far as it was going into the umbra and it still had a sliver out of it and the umbra started receding after that. The moon was almost all a deep orange red.
Ha. That confused me when they said Friday.
It happens
Someone reminded me that Friday meant early, after midnight Thursday...
It was really windy and cloudy here so I ended up going to bed early.
I think staying up all night to get mooned was slightly over rated.
At the peak (4:02 EST) about 90% of the moon was reddish looking.
There were only three of us standing in the middle of the street in the middle of the night in my neighborhood.
Unfortunately, it was too cold for a threesome.