Credit & Copyright: Peter Ward (Barden Ridge
Observatory)
Explanation:
The
reddened shadow of planet Earth
plays across the lunar
disk in this telescopic image taken on May 26 near
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
On that crisp, clear autumn night a Perigee Full Moon
slid through the northern edge of the shadow's
dark central umbra.
Short
for a lunar eclipse,
its total phase
lasted only about 14 minutes.
The Earth's shadow was not completely dark though.
Instead it was suffused with a faint red light from all
the planet's sunsets and sunrises seen from the
perspective
of an
eclipsed Moon, the
reddened sunlight scattered by Earth's atmosphere.
The HDR composite of 6 exposures also shows the wide range of
brightness variations within
Earth's umbral shadow against a faint
background of stars.
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NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: total lunar eclipse
Publications with words: total lunar eclipse
See also: