Full moon and partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve

Post Reply New Topic

On New Year's Eve the second full moon in the month (also called 'blue moon') will be visible in the USA, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. In Australia and Asia the full moon will show up on New Year's Day.
Furthermore a partial lunar eclipse will occur in Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa.
So if you're outside on New Year's Eve, take a look at the sky

For more information, see:
msnbc - Ring out the old year with a blue moon
time and date - Partial lunar eclipse on December 31, 2009
wikipedia - lunar eclipse
wikipedia - lunar eclipse December 31, 2009

do you know when it will be visible in the N.W. US ? and the best way to see it since it is a partial eclipse.

If it isn't raining or too cloudy. Where we live (Scientist and I) it probably will.

That's not a ball dropping in Times Square.

Unfortunately the partial lunar eclipse won't be visible in the USA, since at the time of the eclipse the USA will have daylight. But you can see the eclipse online. I found a Dutch website (it is a pity that it isn't in English, but it has some very nice images, the best I could find, and you don't need to understand the Dutch words ) with images of the moon and images explaining about the eclipse, and on the website in the upper left corner ("Figuur 1") there's an image of the Moon; if you click on it, a new window will open with a live image of the Moon. There also is an animation of what the eclipse will look like, on the website; you can see the shade of the Earth moving over the Moon's surface. In the upper right corner of the website there is an image of what the Moon will look like when the eclipse is at maximum.
Below I added the link; I also added a link to a NASA pdf file (which opens in your browser) about the eclipse and another website about it. The latter two also show a world map indicating the parts of the world that will have night at the time of the eclipse.

The eclipse will be difficult to see with the naked eye, because only a very small part of the Moon will be covered in Earth's umbral shadow, but a shading of the Moon will be clearly visible.

Time of the eclipse (times are Universal Time, UT, or Greenwich Mean Time, GMT):
At 17:17 the moon will enter the Earth's penumbra, from that moment the Earth will be shading the Moon's surface.
At 18:53 the moon will enter the Earth's umbra, from that moment a (very small) part of the Moon will not be visible.
19:23 will be the moment of greatest eclipse.
At 19:53 the Moon will leave Earth's umbra, from that moment the whole of the Moon will be visible again, though the Earth will still be shading its surface.
At 21:28 the Moon will leave Earth's penumbra again, and the full Moon will be completely visible again.

Links:
Partial lunar eclipse December 31, 2009 (Very nice images, live image Moon, and animation of eclipse)
NASA - Partial lunar eclipse of 2009 Dec 31
Hermit Eclipse - Partial lunar eclipse: Dec 31, 2009
Yeah, it'll probably either be cloudy or overcast. Some snow is expected.
We might have to look at that website to see it, instead of seeing it outside.
:D

Well it sounded exciting atleast we will be able to see the video before the kids bedtime, thanks for posting.

I have an eclipse-related question.
The NASA gave times for the eclipse.
They gave the time of greatest eclipse, 19:23 UT (GMT).
They also gave the time of the ecliptic conjunction, which is not the same time: 19:13.
But can anyone explain what exactly is the ecliptic conjunction?
Because I thought it would be when Sun, Earth and Moon are in one line (or closest to being in one line), but that would be the time of greatest eclipse, so it must be different
Does anyone know this?

Yes, it's nice that they put it online, so everyone can see it.
I checked outside, but here it is overcast, unfortunately.

And Dutch isnt too hard. Its pronounced very phonetically. They also use a lot of loan words from English. It just looks hard.

Can you understand or speak Dutch?