May 22, 2012

SandBoxBlogs: Summit County Citizens Voice "Jimmy Westlake: Partial lunar eclipse on horizon"

All credit Jimmy Westlake:
"In an eerie re-creation of last December’s sunrise lunar eclipse, the full moon once again will slip into the Earth’s dark shadow by the dawn’s early light on the morning of June 4. This eclipse, however, will not be total for anyone on Earth. It is a partial eclipse of the moon, which means the moon’s path only takes it through the edge of the Earth’s shadow, not completely into it.

An eclipse of the moon occurs when the moon passes through the Earth’s long shadow cast into space, either partially or totally. This can occur only during the full moon phase when the moon is opposite the sun in our sky, but it doesn’t happen at every full moon because of the 5-degree tilt of the moon’s orbit relative to the Earth’s orbit. The full moon usually passes slightly above or slightly below the shadow cone of the Earth.

June’s full moon is known in folklore as the Flower Moon. It will rise at sunset on the evening of June 3 and will show no hint of an eclipse until just before 4 a.m. the next morning. That’s when the lower-left edge of the moon will begin to darken as it enters the Earth’s umbral shadow. Then it becomes a race against sunrise as dawn brightens the sky. Maximum eclipse happens at 5:03 a.m. when 37 percent of the Flower Moon will be shadowed. The sun will rise at about 5:39 a.m. and the partially eclipsed moon will set only nine minutes later, at 5:48 a.m....." (Read more? Click title)

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