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Seeing red: First total lunar eclipse of the year shines in the night sky Sunday

Sunday's total lunar eclipse is the first of three this year.

Posted Updated

By
Tony Rice
, NASA Ambassador

There's a chance you may have caught a glimpse of a total lunar eclipse on Sunday night.

Sunday's total lunar eclipse was the first of three this year.

Unlike solar eclipses, which last minutes at best, lunar eclipses last hours.

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The partial eclipse began at 10:27 p.m. Sunday as the moon passed into the umbra, or the darker central portion of the earth's shadow.

My favorite time to view an eclipse is when the moon is at a 50% eclipse. The half moon takes on a reddish-orange color, while the rest of the moon remains in the brighter and less colorful outer portion of the shadow called the penumbra.

Totality began just before 11:30 p.m. That umbral shadow is about 2.6 times the diameter of the moon, so totality lasts about 90 minutes.

That 50% eclipse point happened again at 1:23 a.m. on Monday and then the partial eclipse ended at 1:55 a.m.

There is also a penumbral eclipse between 9:32 p.m. and 2:50 p.m., but it is much more difficult to see.

NASA live streamed the event from 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m:

Why are lunar eclipses red?

What you are actually seeing during a lunar eclipse is all the sunsets and all the sunrises around the world simultaneously shown on the moon. Eclipses happen as the moon, earth and sun line up, with earth blocking the sun.

But sunlight filters through the earth's atmosphere with just the longer red wavelengths of light making their way through, while shorter blue light is scattered. This is the same process that creates beautiful Carolina blue skies.

Are lunar eclipses rare?

Lunar eclipses can only occur around a full Moon when the Moon, Earth and Sun are lined up, but they don't happen each month. The Moon's orbit is tilted about 5º which causes it to miss the shadow cast by Earth more often than pass through it. When it grazes that shadow, a partial lunar eclipse is created. When it passes completely through, a total solar eclipse is created.

The Moon's tilted orbit causes it to miss Earth's shadow more often than pass through it creating a lunr eclipse

They are visible in Raleigh 2-3 times each year.

  • 2020: July 4-5 (penumbral), Nov 30 (penumbral)
  • 2021: May 26 (partial), Nov 19 (partial)
  • 2022: May 15-16 (total), Nov 8 (total)
  • 2023: Oct 28 (very brief penumbral), March 125 (penumbral)
  • 2024: Mar 25 (penumbral), Sep 17-18 (partial)

Raleigh will also see partial solar eclipses on October 15, 2023 (annular) and April 8, 2024 (total).

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