Untitled Document
©2003 by Fred Espenak
Longtime eclipse observer
Fred Espenak captured this series of photographs of a lunar eclipse on July
6, 1982. The sequence is similar to what you might see tonight (May 15-16) during
a total lunar eclipse visible from most of the Western Hemisphere, weather permitting.
Espenak took the images
from Chesapeake Bay, MD. They show the Moon at the beginning, middle and end
of the total phase of the eclipse.
The Moon is in Earth's shadow,
with no sunlight reaching it directly, so why the red glow? Earth's atmosphere
filters out most of the blue, green and yellow light that comes from the Sun,
while some of the red light is refracted through the atmosphere, hits the Moon,
and is reflected back.
Espenak works at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center and is the author of "Totality: Eclipses of
the Sun" (Oxford University Press). He is perhaps the mostly widely quoted
eclipse expert and recognized by other experts for the maps and diagrams he
creates for solar and lunar eclipses.
Eclipses don't have names,
so astronomers recently honored Espenak, known as Mr. Eclipse, by officially
attaching his name to an asteroid in March.
"It came as a terrific
but most pleasant shock to be honored with the naming of minor planet 14120
as 'Espenak,'" Espenak told SPACE.com this week. "Now everyone
is asking me if I've picked out a few acres for my vacation home!"
-- Robert
Roy Britt
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