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On December 10, the Last Lunar Eclipse Until 2014

Posted by timothy on from the lucky-west-coasters dept.

New submitter althanas has this entry, snipped from NASA's Science News, for next weekend's social calendar (if you're lucky enough to live in the viewing range): "The action begins around 4:45 am Pacific Standard Time [on December 10th] when the red shadow of Earth first falls across the lunar disk. By 6:05 am Pacific Time, the Moon will be fully engulfed in red light. This event — the last total lunar eclipse until 2014 — is visible from the Pacific side of North America, across the entire Pacific Ocean to Asia and Eastern Europe. For people in the western United States the eclipse is deepest just before local dawn. Not only will the Moon be beautifully red, it will also be inflated by the Moon illusion."

8 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Can we start using GMT/UTC in posts please? by Hadlock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    PST/CST/EST is great and all, but it's much easier for international users to just convert from GMT/UTC to their local time zone. Heck, I'm in CST and it's faster for me to simply know that CST is UTC -6:00 than it is to remember if PST is two or three hours ahead or behind me. Additionally it gets rid of the ambiguity of wether or not PST is currently on DST or not (let's not get in to that argument today...).

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    moox. for a new generation.
    1. Re:Can we start using GMT/UTC in posts please? by Kangburra · · Score: 5, Informative

      To be fair TFA states Pacific Time, so it is NASA you need to be complaining to.

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      Common sense is not so common
  2. Some info for the astonoy geeks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can use this nasa javascript calculator to see when you will be able to see the eclipse (or any other one). The interface is clunky and 1997ish but hey.. that's your government at work!

    http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JLEX/JLEX-NA.html

    1. Re:Some info for the astonoy geeks by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The interface is clunky and 1997ish but hey.. that's your government at work!

      By "clunky and 1997ish," you apparently mean "loads quickly, works the same on any browser, and gives you useful information without a bunch of extraneous crap." Man, I miss 1997.

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      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    2. Re:Some info for the astonoy geeks by dotancohen · · Score: 2

      The interface is clunky and 1997ish but hey.. that's your government at work!

      By "clunky and 1997ish," you apparently mean "loads quickly, works the same on any browser, and gives you useful information without a bunch of extraneous crap." Man, I miss 1997.

      You equate "works the same on any browser" with 1997? Wow, were you browsing only designed-for-Netscapse sites or only designed-for-IE sites at the time?

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      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  3. Has anyone else noticed this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is really weird, but all of the last several lunar eclipses have occurred exactly at a Full Moon!

    Non only is this very spooky, but it also proves astrology!

  4. next time in 2014 by Cyko_01 · · Score: 2

    so what you are saying is that if I miss it then I can catch it next time in 3 years and its no big deal?

  5. Re:Technically... by voidphoenix · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, the Moon doesn't always pass through the Earth's shadow on every orbit. It's (the Moon's) orbital plane is tilted with respect to the Earth's.

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    Excuse me, wtf r u doin?