Saturday, January 8, 2011

APOD 2.8

Eclipse at Moonset (December 29, 2010)

This picture shows the moon going through the phases of the lunar eclipse above Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The solstice lunar eclipse occurred during the morning of Dec. 21. Moving from left to right, you can see the moon growing smaller and smaller as it gets covered in the Earth's shadow. When the moon gets completely covered in Earth's shadow, or umbra, it has a orange/reddish color. This apod was interesting because it pertained to the moon, which was my subject for my astronomy presentation for quarter 2. So, it was easier to follow along with this apod because i already know the process involved with a lunar eclipse, which i actually did stay up to see. I was able to see the moon covered in the shadow and the total eclipse. The one thing that i didn't know before that i learned from this apod was why the moon turned into the orange/reddish color during the eclipse. Even though Earth blocks out most of the sunlight that reaches the moon, some of the light still reaches the moon. However the sunlight has to first past through earth's atmosphere which filters out the blue, so when it shines on the moon it looks orangey from the lack of blue.

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