Total Lunar Eclipse

Total Lunar Eclipse on View May 15-16

On the night of May 15, and into the early hours of May 16, skywatchers will be treated to a phenomenon which takes place every 1.5 years or so: a total lunar eclipse.

Total lunar eclipses occur when the Moon and Sun are on opposite sides of Earth and the planet casts a complete shadow, or umbra, over its sole natural satellite. There may be multiple partial lunar eclipses each year, but total eclipses are a bit rarer. Best of all, unlike the precautions one takes to observe a total solar eclipse, it’s completely safe to watch a lunar eclipse unfold with the unaided eye. Even so, binoculars or a powerful telescope definitely can enrich the experience.

A nearly total eclipse of November’s full “Beaver Moon” captured over the city of New Orleans before dawn on Nov. 19, 2021. The 97% eclipse clocked in at 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 24 seconds, making it the longest partial lunar eclipse in 580 years. Credits: NASA/Michoud Assembly Facility

The partial eclipse phase will begin over North America at 9:28 p.m. Central Daylight Time on May 15. Totality will begin at 10:29 p.m. CDT, concluding about midnight. After totality, the partial phase will end at 12:56 a.m. CDT on May 16.

This full Moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Flower Moon because this was the time of year when spring flowers appeared in abundance.

Mitzi Adams and Alphonse Sterling, both astronomers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are particularly excited to observe the lunar eclipse. One of the most recent such events they documented – in January 2018 – was very low on the horizon, with trees and buildings partially obscuring the eclipse during totality.

Then, of course, the global COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on eclipse watch parties in 2020-2021.

A telescopic visualization of the total lunar eclipse, happening May 15-16, 2022.
Credits: NASA/Goddard/Ernie Wright

“It’s exciting to get back to holding astronomical society events in person, where it’s safer to share a telescope eyepiece,” Adams said.

Unlike a total solar eclipse – in which ideal viewing is limited to a roughly 100-mile-wide “path of totality” as the shadow of Earth’s Moon sweeps across the land relative to the position of the Sun – a lunar eclipse has no such limits.

“The whole half of Earth in darkness during those hours will be able to see it,” Sterling said. “You don’t have to work too hard to find a good vantage point. Just go outside!”

What can viewers expect to see? As Earth’s shadow deepens on the face of the Moon, it will darken to a ruddy, red color, with its intensity depending on atmospheric interference.

It’s no surprise observers coined the ominous-sounding phrase “blood moon,” but the effect is completely natural. During the eclipse, most visible-spectrum light from the Sun is filtered out. Only the red and orange wavelengths reach the surface.

The blocking of the Moon’s reflected light has another benefit, Adams said.

“No moon means more visible stars,” she said. “During totality, if the skies are clear, we may even be able to see the Milky Way itself, showing up as a hazy white river of stars stretching away in a curving arc.”

Sterling notes that the long duration of the total eclipse offers amateur shutterbugs plenty of time to experiment with photographing the event. He recommends trying varying exposure times with conventional cameras for maximum effect.

He and Adams both emphasize the value of putting the camera aside, as well.

“Just watch it happen,” Adams said. “Looking at the Moon, it’s hard not to think about the people who actually walked there, and about those who soon will do so again – when NASA’s Artemis program launches the next human explorers to the Moon in coming years.”

Sterling said the most valuable aspect of the event is the chance to spark wonder in young minds. “We don’t get a lot of groundbreaking astronomical information from lunar eclipses, but they’re a great way to inspire discussion and engage the astronomers and explorers of tomorrow,” he said.

Find out how to watch the total lunar eclipse with NASA Science Live on Facebook. Learn more about NASA’s observations of eclipses, and inspire young stargazers with activities and information.

You can also learn more about lunar eclipses via the video below:

Happy skywatching!

by Rick Smith

Ask an Astronomer: What’s a Supermoon?

“The second supermoon of 2019 happened Feb. 19. The third of 2019 will happen March 19. But what’s a supermoon? We asked NASA astronomer Mitzi Adams what’s really going on here. Here’s her answer!”

Like the orbits of all bodies in the solar system, the Moon’s orbit around Earth is not circular, it has an oval or elliptical shape, with Earth slightly offset from the center. As a result, there are two distance extremes of each orbit: closest approach, known as perigee, and the farthest, or apogee. When the Moon is at closest approach and within a day or so of being full, it is called a supermoon because the Moon will be at its brightest and largest.

For the supermoon on Feb.19, the Moon will be full only six hours after it reaches the perigee distance of its orbit, making it the brightest and largest full Moon of the year. A supermoon also occurred in January with a slightly more distant perigee, a mere 362 miles (583 kilometers) farther away, but 14 hours after the full Moon. However, January’s supermoon included a total lunar eclipse seen in all of North and South America. The third and last supermoon of the year will happen March 19, when the perigee distance will be reached a day and five hours before the full Moon (see the table below for details).

Date	Perigee Distance	Time Before or After Full Moon
Jan. 21	222,043 miles (357,344 km)	15 hours after
Feb. 19	221,681 miles (356,761 km)	6 hours before
March 19	223,308 miles (359,380 km)	1 day, 5 hours before

A total lunar eclipse accompanied the first in a trilogy of supermoons in 2019. Credit: NASA/MSFC/Joe Matus

To watch tonight’s supermoon, or any full Moon, simply look for the Moon to rise in the east as the Sun sets in the west. The Moon will look extremely large when it rises and sets. This “Moon illusion” happens when the Moon is close to the horizon and there are objects within our line of sight such as trees or buildings. Because these relatively close objects are in front of the Moon, our brain is tricked into thinking the Moon is much closer to the objects that are in our line of sight. At Moon rise or set, it only appears larger than when it is directly overhead because there are no nearby objects with which to compare it. You can check this. When the Moon rises, hold a coin at arm’s length so that the coin covers the Moon. Repeat this throughout the evening and you will see that the Moon’s size does not change.

As it rises on Feb. 19, the Moon will be in the constellation of Leo. However, since the Moon is so bright, you may have trouble seeing the bright star Regulus, which is at the end of the “backwards question mark” that makes Leo easy to spot.

Looking more or less directly overhead, you could see the famous constellation Orion the Hunter with bright stars Betelgeuse, a reddish star, and Rigel, a bluish star. With a telescope or binoculars, you might be able to pick out the Orion nebula just below the belt stars of Orion, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.

Great Nebula in Orion — Credit: Stellarium

To the west of Orion you should be able to spot reddish Mars.

As we observe this supermoon, keep in mind that 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of a great technological feat – humans travelled to the Moon, walked on its surface and returned safely to Earth. Twelve people walked on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first two, but let us not forget the other ten: Alan Bean, Charles “Pete” Conrad, Edgar D. Mitchell, Alan Shepard, Dave Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene “Gene” Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. These men, along with the command module pilots Michael Collins, Dick Gordon, Stu Roosa, Al Worden, Ken Mattingly, Ron Evans and the multitudes of support staff back on Earth, fulfilled a dream of exploring our nearest neighbor in space. As NASA and its commercial and international partners plan to return the Moon over the next decade with a long-term continued presence, the list of Moon walkers will surely include women, as well.

A good resource for more information on supermoons may be found here: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/earths-moon/what-is-a-supermoon/.

Constellation screenshots are from Stellarium, a planetarium software package that is accompanied by a GNU General Public License

Mitzi Adams is a solar scientist in the Heliophysics and Planetary Science Branch at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

By Mitzi Adams, NASA Marshall solar scientist

Last August, citizens and visitors to the United States of America had a rare opportunity to see a total solar eclipse, because the path of totality ranged from Oregon to South Carolina, essentially bisecting the country. But alas, the total lunar eclipse happening on Friday, July 27, will totally miss the United States. Being able to observe the Moon totally immersed in Earth’s shadow depends mostly on whether it is dark at the time the eclipse happens, so about half the Earth would be in the right place to see the eclipse, weather permitting of course. This time, residents of Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and parts of South America will be so lucky. In contrast, totality for a solar eclipse is very narrow and only a very small portion of Earth is in the shadow of the Moon. For the August 2017 eclipse, only those within an approximately 100 km (63 miles) wide path saw the Sun totally eclipsed.

So what happens when there is a lunar eclipse? Unlike the solar variety, Earth blocks the Sun for a lunar eclipse. For the lunar eclipse to happen, the Moon’s phase must be “full”, which means that the orbiting Moon is opposite the Sun, with Earth in between. When the Sun sets in the west, the Moon rises in the east — and this event happens once a “moonth” (or month). But a lunar eclipse does not happen every month. Why is that?

The Moon is seen here during the January 2018 lunar eclipse, setting in the western horizon, not yet in totality.
Image credit: NASA/Alphonse Sterling

Well, now we get into more tricky territory. Let’s try a thought experiment. Draw a line between the centers of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. This line is part of a plane that describes how Earth orbits the Sun, called the plane of the ecliptic. The Moon orbits Earth, only its orbit is tilted with respect to the plane of the ecliptic, sometimes the Moon is above the plane, sometimes it is below the plane. Only when the Moon’s orbit lines up with the ecliptic plane do we have a chance for an eclipse. If the phase of the Moon is “full” when this happens, we have a lunar eclipse. If the phase of the Moon is “new,” we have a solar eclipse. Sometimes the orbital planes do not line up exactly, in those cases, we would have partial eclipses.

Fred Espenak, click here for more info on Lunar Eclipse Geometry.

The July 27 eclipse is somewhat special because the length of totality will be the longest of this century at one hour, 43 minutes. Why? Several reasons. The Moon will be at apogee, or at the farthest distance from Earth (406,000 km or 252,000 mi) possible for our Moon. Objects in orbit around Earth move slower the farther away they are, which means it will take longer for the Moon to traverse the width of Earth’s shadow. In addition, the Moon will be almost exactly on that line that connects Sun, Earth, Moon, also increasing the length of time the Moon will spend in the umbral (darkest) part of Earth’s shadow. Finally, Earth reached its greatest distance from the Sun (aphelion) quite recently (July 6), meaning that Earth’s shadow on July 27 will be close to the largest it can be, adding even more distance (and time) to the Moon’s shadowy traverse.

This image is of the full Moon before the January 2018 lunar eclipse.
Image credit: NASA Marshall/Alphonse Sterling

The partial phase of the eclipse will begin at 18:24 UT, with totality beginning at 19:30 UT (see the NASA time zone page for help with conversion to your local time and official U.S. time). Totality will be over at 21:13 UT and the partial phase ends at 22:19 UT. Viewing a lunar eclipse does not require a telescope or even special glasses; however, while waiting for totality to begin, which is marked by a reddish-brown color to the Moon, a telescope could be used to view two planets that are in the evening sky. Mars will be visible, and should be pretty bright since there is currently a dust storm covering the entire planet. So the telescope will not see any surface detail here, but the redness of the planet will contrast well with the reddish hue of a totally eclipsed Moon. Saturn will be visible to the west of Mars — and even binoculars will resolve the rings, but a telescope could provide more detail. For all observers, find the full Moon in the night sky, Mars will be close to and below (south of) the Moon, a bright reddish “star-like” object. For detailed information about this eclipse, click here.