Lunar Eclipse Falls on Winter Solstice December 20th 2010

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Lunar Eclipse Falls on Winter Solstice for First Time in Centuries:

For those wanting to get a glimpse of a red moon,  December 20th 2010 will be the time to do it. This is a rare event that hasn't occurred in over 300 years and wont again occur for hundreds of more years.

As many as 1.5 billion people worldwide will be able to watch when the Earth's shadow creeps across the moon's surface early Tuesday morning, the first time in hundreds of years that a lunar eclipse will fall on the winter solstice.

With the full moon high in the winter sky, the lunar eclipse will be visible from four continents, with the best views from North America and Central America if weather permits, scientists say.


 
Heribert Proepper, AP
The moon appears totally covered by shadow as the Earth passes between the moon and the sun during a lunar eclipse in January 2001."It's a really democratic event," Andrew Fraknoi, the chairman of astronomy at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "because you don't need an expensive telescope or any other sophisticated equipment to enjoy the spectacle -- just your eyes or, if you like, a pair of binoculars."

Unlike a solar eclipse, eclipses of the moon can usually be observed anywhere in the hemisphere where the moon is above the horizon.

This particular lunar eclipse also may be seen in totality from northern and western Europe, some of northeast Asia, Hawaii and New Zealand, according to Space.com. In total, some 1.5 billion people may have a chance to see the full eclipse, the website reported.

Total lunar eclipses during winter in the northern hemisphere are fairly common, NASA says. However, a lunar eclipse falling precisely on the date of the solstice is quite rare.

Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory inspected a list of eclipses going back 2000 years for NASA.

"Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21," Chester said, according to NASA. "Fortunately we won't have to wait 372 years for the next one ... that will be on 2094 DEC 21."

This year's event will take 3 hours and 38 minutes. The eclipse begins on Tuesday at 1:33 a.m. ET, when the Earth's dark-red shadow will turn up on the edge of the moon, according to NASA. It will take about an hour for the shadow to cover the entire moon. Totality begins at 2:41 a.m. and lasts for 72 minutes.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/17dec_solsticeeclipse/


*Hopes for clear skies for all*

 

[White Stripes]

you're a day off sweet.... its on the 21st....

from nasa site;

The eclipse begins on Tuesday morning, Dec. 21st, at 1:33 am EST

user comment on http://bigthink.com/ideas/25574

Eastern Standard Time:

•Penumbral eclipse begins 12:29 AM EST
•Partial eclipse begins 1:33 AM EST
•Total eclipse begins 2:41 AM EST
•Greatest eclipse 3:17 AM EST
•Total eclipse ends 3:53 AM EST
•Partial eclipse ends 5:01 AM EST
•Penumbral eclipse ends 6:05 AM EST

Central Standard Time:

•Penumbral eclipse begins 11:29 PM CST
•Partial eclipse begins 12:33 AM CST
•Total eclipse begins 1:41 AM CST
•Greatest eclipse 2:17 AM CST
•Total eclipse ends 2:53 AM CST
•Partial eclipse ends 4:01 AM CST
•Penumbral eclipse ends 5:05 AM CST

Mountain Standard Time:

•Penumbral eclipse begins 10:29 PM MST
•Partial eclipse begins 11:33 PM MST
•Total eclipse begins 12:41 AM MST
•Greatest eclipse 1:17 AM MST
•Total eclipse ends 1:53 AM MST
•Partial eclipse ends 3:01 AM MST
•Penumbral eclipse ends 4:05 AM MST

Pacific Standard Time:

•Penumbral eclipse begins 9:29 PM PST
•Partial eclipse begins 10:33 PM PST
•Total eclipse begins 11:41 PM PST
•Greatest eclipse 12:17 AM PST
•Total eclipse ends 12:53 AM PST
•Partial eclipse ends 2:01 AM PST
•Penumbral eclipse ends 3:05 AM PST

The Universal Time (UT) of the eclipse will be:

•Penumbral eclipse begins 5:29 UT
•Partial eclipse begins 6:33 UT
•Total eclipse begins 7:41 UT
•Greatest eclipse 8:17 UT
•Total eclipse ends 8:53 UT
•Partial eclipse ends 10:01 UT
•Penumbral eclipse ends 11:05 UT

Claude pelletier

(left the name of the poster in due to the effort put into making that post.... )


...to put it into a 'universal' time; 06:33:00 a.m. Tuesday December 21, 2010 GMT

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You are absolutely right Stripes!  Ty..   It will occur for me after midnight which would be the 21st of December, but for those in California it will start at 10:30 PM December 20th.   

  I plan on catching the whole event even though it is said to last 3 hours or so.

Here is the list of times for those in the U.S. to view this.

From beginning to end, the eclipse will last about three hours and twenty-eight minutes. For observers on the east coast of the U.S. the eclipse lasts from 1:33am EST through 5:01 a.m. EST. Viewers on the west coast will be able to tune in a bit earlier. For them the eclipse begins at 10:33 p.m. PST on December 20 and lasts until 2:01am PST on Dec. 21. Totality, the time when Earth's shadow completely covers the moon, will last a lengthy 72 minutes

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/eclipse/index.html

Those in the UK need only add aprox 6 hours time to that

I hope to take some pictures of it and/or capture video.