On the night of November 18th into the morning of November 19th, a partial lunar eclipse was seen in many areas around the world, including in my small town in Ontario.
The eclipse was set to peak at around 4:30 am on the morning of November 19th, and I was prepared to see it live in person. So at 2 am, I took a few friends, left my house with my telescope, and headed for a field with open access to the sky. This was a partial lunar eclipse, meaning that the moon was not entirely blocked from the sun's light. The map below shows what the partial eclipse looked like, a sliver of the moon was left still illuminated by the light from the sun, whereas the majority of the moon was not and instead appeared red.
Why does the moon appear red in an eclipse?
I wondered this myself for many years. Essentially, the Earth moves directly between the Sun and the Moon during a lunar eclipse, cutting the moon off from being illuminated with sunlight. The Earth's atmosphere scatters and absorbs colours of light with short wavelengths (blue and violet, for example). However, colours with longer wavelengths of light (orange and red) will pass through the atmosphere. During a lunar eclipse, since the Earth sits between the Sun and the Moon, the atmosphere will remove light of shorter wavelengths, but red light will pass through and still reach the moon. That is why the Moon will appear reddish/orange as it passes through the Earth's shadow.
The partial lunar eclipse of November 19th was unusual because it lasted for much longer than normal lunar eclipses. The eclipse started just after 2am and didn't end until after 5:30. The peak occurred near 4am and lasted for several minutes.
A map of the lunar eclipse from Time and Date. The dark regions indicate where the maximum visibility of the partial lunar eclipse occurred. As you can see, anyone in Canada was in the full pathway of the partial lunar eclipse.
I was prepared to watch the partial eclipse through my Celestron telescope. It was cloudy outside, but I was able to point my telescope to the moon and catch a close up view of the eclipse when the clouds parted. Luckily, by the peak of the eclipse (4am), the clouds were mostly gone. I have now witnessed both a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse in person! I'm looking forward to future eclipses where I can continue to refine my photos and strategy of viewing.
The picture on the right is the view I was looking at through my telescope! As you can see, the partial eclipse was peaking during this picture, with 3/4 of the moon appearing red and the remaining 1/4 still exposed to sunlight. On the left is an aesthetic picture of me with my telescope added for the effect :D It was snowing that night (which is what the white dots in the picture are). Until next time!
