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Total Lunar Eclipse This Weekend

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the umbra-and-penumbra dept.

SeaDour writes "This Saturday night, March 3rd, a total lunar eclipse will be visible from nearly all inhabited parts of the world. A great shadow will stretch across the surface of the moon, eventually casting it in an eerie red glow as sunlight filters through our atmosphere onto the lunar surface. Viewers in Europe and Africa will have the best vantage point, able to watch the entire eclipse in action, while observers in most of the western hemisphere can see it eclipsed as it rises just after sunset."

29 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. When where.. by JackMeyhoff · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://skytonight.com/observing/home/This_Weekends _Total_Lunar_Eclipse.html http://media.skytonight.com/images/March'07+TLE_l. jpg

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    http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
    1. Re:When where.. by Broken+scope · · Score: 4, Funny

      No that what we call "OH FUCK"

      --
      You mad
  2. I for one.. by bumby · · Score: 2, Informative

    I for one will have my camera ready, hoping to snatch some nice pictures.

    --
    Hey! That's my sig you're smoking there!
  3. Re:Time information by ACS+Solver · · Score: 5, Informative

    Begins at 2018 GMT, with the full eclipse being 2244 - 2358 GMT.

  4. Omen by sporkme · · Score: 5, Informative

    The eclipse starts at 3:18 p.m. EST Saturday, with the total eclipse occurring at 5:44 p.m. EST. Look east at sunset. I'll be out there for sure.

    The next total lunar eclipse occurs on August 28.

    --
    FairTax baby!
  5. Imagine the advertising revenue! by JackMeyhoff · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I really hope if there is no law now there will be in the future that bans beaming advertisements off stellar bodies. Last thing I want to see through my telescope is 1) goatse and 2) some advert.

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    http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
  6. Panic?! by oldwindways · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am curious to see how parts of the third world reacts to an "eerie red" moon rise. Eclipses have prompted some pretty interesting responses in the past.

    --
    "Si vis pacem para bellum" -Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
    1. Re:Panic?! by orasio · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, we in the third world, as the uneducated subhumans that we are, will look at the big tit in the ceiling, as we like to call it, turn red and dissapear, and believe that the world has come to an end, running around with our arms up in the sky.

    2. Re:Panic?! by ultranova · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, we in the third world, as the uneducated subhumans that we are

      A "glass is half empty" type, I see. Try positive thinking: start referring to yourselfs as supermonkeys !-)

      will look at the big tit in the ceiling, as we like to call it, turn red and dissapear, and believe that the world has come to an end, running around with our arms up in the sky.

      All I see here in Finland are clouds :(.

      And the Moon doesn't disappear during a lunar eclipse, it is perfectly visible, just dimmer and redder than usual. Maybe you supermonkeys have bad eyesight as well ?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    3. Re:Panic?! by maggard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How will 3rd world inhabitants react to this lunar eclipse?

      Presumably with complete calm and mild interest, just like their condescending 1st world neighbors.

      It's not like lunar eclipses aren't particularly rare, about two happen a year. A full eclipse is less frequent but still happens often enough to have been already experienced by most adults.

      Indeed folks in poorer areas are usually less impressed by celestial phenomena because they are well familiar with such. Lighting costs money and so isn't as wasted as it is in many 1st world places, leaving the skies that much darker and their contents that much more visible.

      Want to see someone freak out over the contents of a night sky? Take a young person from any large first world city far out into the countryside on a clear evening, let their eyes dark adjust, and then show them the night sky. That prompts "some pretty interesting responses".

      --
      I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
    4. Re:Panic?! by ChuckleBug · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Dear Third World:

      Please accept my apology on behalf of the vast majority of the rest of us in the "first world," lacking a better term. The parent's comment made me cringe so hard I almost imploded. I'm not sure if that cretin is from the US, but in case he/she is, as a sentient American, I doubly apologize.

      I really wish assholes like the OP would quit talking about the rest of the world in such condescending terms. I'm sick of being made to look bad by association with fools like that. Believe it or not, OP, otherly-skinned or located people are not ignorant savages. Now if we could just get rid of the ignorant savages among us in the first world.

      God, how embarrassing.

    5. Re:Panic?! by orasio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Trolling? Ok. I like trolling.
      In my country, there's nobody who thinks that fucking a virgin can cure aids.
      We don't believe that Saddam Hussein used to eat babies for lunch, either.
      We don't believe that the world was created in six days. I someone can create the world in six days, someone could turn the moon red, and eat it in a minute, right? We don't expose our kids to that kind of "knowledge", either.

      I don't think someone should be talking shit about culture in the third world, when talking from an US centric forum.
      People in Europe enjoy a better degree of literacy and culture than most third wolrd countries, but the US has a long way to go, especially in the stuff that we are talking about, like believing myths above science and stuff.

    6. Re:Panic?! by MPHellwig · · Score: 2, Funny

      I believe that the moon will cry out loud: "Get out of my way you big fat stupip blue planet, you're blocking my view!", of course some of my personalities disagree but there not allowed to speak out loud since they grilled the neighbours dog.

  7. Re:Time information by wkk2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It will start 10 minutes after the clouds arrive. Sorry, but that is what usually happens.

  8. Re:Time information by JackMeyhoff · · Score: 2, Funny

    Be afraid of those clouds look like 2 fists grabbing the moon's disc :) Lunar goatse!

    --
    http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
  9. clouds by Njovich · · Score: 3, Funny

    Viewers in Europe and Africa will have the best vantage point, able to watch the entire eclipse in action

    Except in the regions around England and the low countries, of course, where it is always clouded.

    1. Re:clouds by hcdejong · · Score: 2, Funny

      To quote Asterix,
      Q: "does it rain here often?"
      A: "Only when there's no fog"

      Over here (.nl) there's some cloud cover ATM, but I'd say it's less than 50%. The national met office reports a good chance at clear skies tonight.

  10. Next Slashdot Post... by TheScreenIsnt · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Total Lunar Eclipse This Weekend a Hoax."

    1. Re:Next Slashdot Post... by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Funny

      That reminds me: Remember folks, a Solar Eclipse is when the Moon gets between the Earth and the Sun. Conversely, a Lunar Eclipse, which is what's happening tonight, is when the Sun gets between the Earth and the Moon.

      Just letting you all know.

      What's really upsetting is that I, and my party of missionaries, are due to be sacrificed by a cannibalistic tribe at noon today, and we were really hoping for a Solar eclipse as a result.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  11. Eric Idle by pipingguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
    And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
    That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
    A sun that is the source of all our power.
    The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
    Are moving at a million miles a day
    In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
    Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

    Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
    It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
    It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
    But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
    We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
    We go 'round every two hundred million years,
    And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
    In this amazing and expanding universe.

    The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
    In all of the directions it can whizz
    As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
    Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
    So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
    How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
    And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
    'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

  12. Moon in front of the Sun from earlier this week by oneiros27 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day has the moon passing in front of the sun, as seen by STEREO.

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  13. A total lunar eclipse can be a beautiful thing by KokorHekkus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I had the opportunity to see one while being far from any light polluting city (or even close to any populated area at all). This was during a night orienteering excercise with the finnish army and we're running around in the middle of the night in some godforsaken forest trying to find the checkpoints. It was a very clear night but after a while it starts to get darker and I look up and the eclipse had started (but no one of use knew about it beforehand). Then at the full eclipse it got really pitch dark... you actually couldn't see your hand infront of you.

    And I looked up... it was very beautiful. With clear country air, no light pollution and no moonlight my eyes was able to see the stars in the Milkyway and around that you never see otherwise... the sky was really full of them and gave me a whole other sense of scale about our place in the galaxy. That might be the closest thing to go to space one can experience while still staying earthbound. I can imagine standing on the back of the moon watching out would create the same sensation.

    So if the weather is clear... don't stay in or near a city if you can get away. It will be worth the trip.

  14. Re:Time information by dosquatch · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, and will there be any plot twists involved?

    The following events take place between the hours of 8:00pm and 9:00pm EST:

    • NBC - David Copperfield special: "Making the Moon Disappear!"
    • CBS - David Blaine special: "No Sooner than Lunar, The Vanishing"
    • ABC - Criss Angel special: "Taking My Ball and Going Home: The Moon is Mine"
    • FOX - John Edward special: "Channelling Houdini: Souls of the Lost Moon"
    • DSC - Mythbusters special: "Superstition Run Amok: The moon is Still There, Stupid"
    --
    "Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
  15. Revelations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    The third world? When I think about countries run by crazy superstitious people, the US is the first place that comes to mind:

    As the moon turns red...
    "Quick, everyone pray, the rapture is starting!"
    "But NASA said it's just..."
    "Yeah, NASA also said your grandparents were monkeys. Now get praying, cos God's coming back!"

  16. Re:Celestia image by xantox · · Score: 3, Interesting

    An actual photo of an eclipse was taken from the moon, by the Surveyor 3 mission in 1967. I made an artificial color version of it, showing the red color refracted from Earth atmosphere (coming from all simultaneous sunrises and sunsets) at http://strangepaths.com/total-lunar-eclipse/2007/0 2/27/en/ (click on "Eclipse seen from the moon" to open the image).

    --
    http://strangepaths.com/
  17. Re:Time information by Yvanhoe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Usually astronomical events happened 24 hours before they are posted in /.

    Seriously, while this one made it in time, wouldn't it be possible to put a "astronomy event" tag on submissions in firehose so that those submissions can be treated in priority and make it on time on the frontpage ?

    --
    The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  18. Inhabited!? by Myopic · · Score: 2, Informative

    What does that even mean, "visible from all inhabited places on earth"? First of all, I live in Juneau, Alaska, a place which is very much so inhabited (okay, not *very* much so, but certainly inhabited), but isn't going to see the eclipse. Moreover, the west coast of the United States, inhabited by more than thirty million people, won't see it either.

    Alaska represent! I'll be yawning during this eclipse. Someone email me a picture.

  19. Re:Time information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You forgot teh competing specials from Al Qaeda & Bush claiming it to be a sign from Allah/God that their cause is right and just.

  20. Re:Time information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where i live 6 out of 7 days are cloudy, why is that you think?
    Most likely, it's because your heart is filled with loneliness. But, it could also mean you live by an ocean. Just buy a parrot - if that doesn't bring light into your life, then move inland.