Tonight we have a lunar eclipse beginning about 11:45pm, Thursday Aug 27. It continues, reaching full coverage of the moon about 12:15am Friday morning. The whole eclipse should be done by 1:30am. Just in case you need a quick reminder on the topic of lunar eclipses, just imagine the earth, sun and moon system. The Earth orbits around the sun and the moon orbits around the earth. Occasionally these celestial bodies line up just right for the Earth to block the sun’s light that shines on the moon. So the shadow of the earth sweeps across the face of the full, or almost full, moon. The effect of the earth’s shadow on the moon is that the moon may appear red or even purple! A lunar eclipse can only happen near the full moon phase, as we are seeing this week.
