Right OutsideWeek of October 11 · Calgary
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Lunar eclipse
Watching · Sky

The moon slides into Earth's shadow

No fixed seasoneach one has its own date

For a couple of hours the moon will pass behind the Earth, and you can watch it happen in real time. A dark curve creeps across the face of the moon, and the part it swallows doesn't go black: it turns a dull copper orange, staying lit the whole way through. What you are seeing is the Earth's own shadow, with our planet sitting between the sun and the moon, and it only ever happens on a full moon. The orange is the best part: it's every sunrise and every sunset on Earth at once, bent through the edge of our atmosphere and landing on the moon. Nothing to buy, nothing to set up, and no reason to look away.

A dark curve crossing the moon, and the covered part glowing orange rather than going black
The shadowed phase runs a couple of hours, so arriving part way through is fine
Anywhere with a clear view of the moon, streetlights and all
Only cloud can spoil it. Smoke haze deepens the colour
SourcesEclipse elements computed from standard published algorithms (Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms ch. 54), cross-checked against the published eclipse canon

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Photo: NASA/Joel Kowsky · public domain · via NASA
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