Vancouverites are soon in for a treat, with a lunar eclipse expected this evening.
A lunar eclipse is when the full moon is in Earth’s shadow, causing its usual bright white colour to redden, explained Michael Unger, the director of programming with the H.R. MacMillian Space Centre.
In Earth’s shadow, the direct light from the sun isn’t hitting the moon anymore (which is what normally causes it to be that bright white). Instead, “there is this curvature of light that goes around the Earth, and that’s what’s shining on the moon,” Unger said.
The hue of red that the moon will be depends on what’s currently happening in our atmosphere, similar to a sunset. For example, the colour of the sun deepens when there are more clouds or particles in the atmosphere, which Vancouverites are familiar with when there’s wildfire smoke in the air.
“That will bend the light a bit more, so that sunset kind of gets into like those like deeper reds, maybe even like purples,” Unger said.
Unger said eclipses happen all the time, but you need to be in a specific location to see them.
“Occasionally, things line up perfectly,” said Unger.
When is the lunar eclipse happening tonight?
Luckily, we won’t have to plan any late nights to see the lunar eclipse, as the moon will be rising already eclipsed this evening.
“Which is kind of unique. Sometimes the moon is already full up there in the sky, and then it goes into the shadow. Or in this case, on Thursday evening, the moon is rising at 7:56 [p.m.], so the eclipse has already started by the time the moon is rising.”
Vancouverites who want to watch it will need to find a location with a view of the east, since the moon rises in that direction.
It will reach its maximum eclipse at about 9:12 p.m. While Unger said it won’t fully eclipse, it will get about 94 per cent eclipsed.
“It’s a pretty good portion of the moon,” he said.
With wildfire smoke polluting Vancouver’s air recently, Unger said that it “will be interesting to see” what colour the eclipse is.
“It’s always a bit of a surprise to see kind of exactly what color the moon is going to be,” he said.
Even on normal nights without an eclipse, wildfire smoke can affect the colour of the moon, he added.
According to ClearDarkSky.com, Vancouver’s cloud cover at the time of the eclipse will be around 20 per cent, so there’s a good chance there will be enough visibility to see it.
“It’s hard to say exactly what part of the sky will be covered by clouds, but it’s not terrible,” Unger said. “If it was 80 per cent clouds, or if it was like totally overcast, then we wouldn’t be able to see much.”
The H.R. MacMillian Space Centre is hosting an event in honour of the lunar eclipse from 7 to 11 p.m. today, with a special planetarium show, feature talk, observatory tour, and telescope viewing.
Originally published on Daily Hive.
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