The Century’s Longest Full Blood Lunar Eclipse: When and How to Watch
Mark the dates of Thursday and Friday, November 18-19, on your calendar. You might want to organise a lunar eclipse viewing party to see the full frost moon turn red. It’s an overnight party, so make sure to request paid time off — you may not want to drag your tired self back to work when the fun is over.
The upcoming event is a partial eclipse that will be visible here and across North America. It will be spectacular, lasting 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 23 seconds.
According to NASA, this will be the longest lunar eclipse of the twenty-first century. In terms of practicality, it’s almost a total eclipse.
Normally, sunlight casts a grayish-white hue on the moon’s face. However, when the eclipse peaks on the 19th at around 4 a.m. Eastern Time, our planet will block 98 percent of the sun’s light from reaching the moon’s surface, washing it in a reddish hue.
When the moon passes through Earth’s partial shadow, or penumbra, and only a portion of it passes through the darkest shadow, or umbra, this is called a partial lunar eclipse. Because of this, a total or nearly total lunar eclipse like this one is often referred to as a “blood moon.”
The November full moon, with or without an eclipse, is also known as the full frost moon, and it is also known as the full beaver or dark moon. All of these terms were used by Native American tribes, who gave the moons unique names to mark the seasons. The frost moon is the autumn’s final full moon.
Although the eclipse lasts approximately 3½ hours from start to finish, the majority of the action occurs in a 2-hour period. It will be available for viewing in all 50 states. Here are the peak times, according to time zone:
You can watch a livestream of the lunar eclipse if it’s cloudy or inconvenient to stay up and watch the eclipse.
Most of North America, as well as eastern Russia, Japan, the Pacific Ocean, Mexico, Central America, and parts of western South America, will be able to see the eclipse this month.
Look for Meteors as well.
The Taurid minor meteor shower, which has been active for a long time, produces only about five or ten shooting stars per hour. It’s unusual not only because of its length — it began on September 7 and will end on December 10 — but also because it has two distinct branches: the South Taurids, which peaked earlier this week, and the North Taurids, which peak Thursday and Friday.
The dust grains left behind by Asteroid 2004 TG10 are responsible for the Taurid meteor shower’s southern branch, and debris left behind by Comet 2P Encke is responsible for the shower’s northern branch. Both streams are teeming with fireballs. Although the shooting stars appear to radiate from the constellation Taurus, they can be seen anywhere in the sky.
The Leonid meteor shower, which is caused by dust grains left behind by comet Tempel-Tuttle, occurs every year from November 6 to 30 and peaks overnight on November 16-17. The Leonids have a cyclonic peak every 33 years, when hundreds of meteors per hour can be seen — the last time this happened was in 2001 — but this year will be an average year, with about 15 shooting stars per hour at the peak.
The nearly full moon will be a nuisance, but the Leonids are known for producing exceptionally bright shooting stars that even bright moonlight cannot obscure. The meteor shower appears to be coming from the constellation Leo.