A great buzz is going around about the upcoming total lunar eclipse that will occur on February 20th, and just in case you can’t find news about it absolutely everywhere else as well as on this site, I thought I would add a little more to the excitement. We haven’t had a total lunar eclipse since August 28th of 2007, and it will be 2010 until there is another. Think back to last August and remember where you were, what you saw, and how you felt during the reddening of that late summer moon. I remember getting up in the middle of the night at about 3:30 am (in Texas) to see the progressed eclipse at its fullest, and I thought it was worth dragging myself out of bed and going out in my back yard for that special event. It was beautiful.
Maximum eclipse this time will occur at 10:26 pm EST, 9:26 pm CST, 8:26 pm MST, and 7:26 pm PST, and since we are still in the winter months, it will be easily visible across all four time zones in the Americas as well as elsewhere in Europe and Western Africa. Read more about it from NASA. You can find details there about the start, maximum and finish times, and what exactly to expect to see.
All eclipses are extraordinary events - some more so than others - but there is something romantic about a lunar eclipses that I find unique. Why? Perhaps because we can look straight at the moon with no visual protection, see the shadow of the earth moving across the face of the moon in real time, and then experience the awe-inspiring site of the moon actually turning red before our very eyes (NASA says sometimes it appears turquoise). This is mysterious and dreamy drama in my book, in contrast to the powerful and highly dramatic nature of a solar eclipse, which turns a bright day dark and cannot be directly viewed with the naked eye, lest the eyes be damaged. I’ve never heard that animals scramble around during a lunar eclipse like they do in a solar eclipse, and I’ve never really heard anyone refer to a solar eclipse as “romantic,” but I’d love to hear observations from readers who have stories of eclipses past you’d like to share.
Here’s another item found on Google Images from Denver’s Chamberlin Observatory showing the anatomy of a total lunar eclipse in 2004.
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