APOD: 2015 September 28 - Total Lunar Eclipse over Waterton Lake
Discover the cosmos!
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is
featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2015 September 28
Total Lunar Eclipse over Waterton Lake
Image Credit & Copyright:
Yuichi Takasaka /
TWAN /
www.blue-moon.ca
Explanation:
Recorded in 2014 April, this total
lunar eclipse sequence looks south down icy Waterton Lake from the
Waterton
Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, planet Earth.
The most distant horizon includes peaks in
Glacier National Park,
USA.
An exposure every 10 minutes captured the Moon's position and
eclipse phase, as it arced, left to right, above the rugged skyline
and Waterton town lights.
In fact, the sequence effectively measures the roughly 80 minute
duration
of the total phase of the
eclipse.
Around 270 BC, the Greek astronomer
Aristarchus
also measured the duration of lunar eclipses - though probably without
the benefit of digital clocks and cameras.
Still,
using geometry, he
devised a simple and impressively accurate way to calculate
the Moon's distance, in terms of the radius of
planet Earth,
from the eclipse duration.
This modern eclipse sequence also tracks the
successive positions of Mars,
above and right of the Moon, bright star
Spica next to the reddened
lunar disk, and Saturn to the left and below.
Gallery:
Last night's total supermoon eclipse
Tomorrow's picture: lightning eclipse
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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