Loading…
Tonight, in order
Tonight the Earth slides between the Sun and the Moon. At 12:13 a.m., 96.3% of the Moon sits inside the umbra — the black core of Earth's shadow. The last 3.7% stays in raw sunlight: a thin silver rind along one edge.
That curved shadow line is the actual shape of the planet you are standing on, projected across a quarter of a million miles.
You are watching a silhouette of the Earth.
The shadowed part never goes fully black. Earth's atmosphere bends a little sunlight around the edges of the planet and drops it onto the Moon — and the blue gets scattered out on the way, for the same reason sunsets are red.
What lands up there is every sunrise and every sunset happening on Earth at that moment, all at once, projected onto the lunar surface.
The umbra is the black core, where Earth blocks the Sun completely. The penumbra is the fuzzy outer part, where Earth only clips its edge.
Tonight the Moon crosses the northern half of the umbra, not dead centre. That near-miss is why a bright rind survives.
Lunar eclipses are common. This deep is not. It is the best lunar eclipse anywhere on Earth until New Year's Eve 2028.
The next time a fully red Moon is visible from this back yard is June 25–26, 2029. Total lunar eclipses skip 2027 entirely.
Saturn, low in the east after 11 — the steady one that isn't twinkling. Albireo, a gold-and-blue double star overhead. Mizar and Alcor, the naked-eye pair in the Dipper's handle.
The Andromeda Galaxy, best around 12:30 when the sky goes properly dark for about forty minutes — that window is the only real chance all night. Vega, Deneb and Altair, straight up.
Swipe or tap the arrows