Information about the total lunar eclipse
on Thursday, 21st February 2008

Easily explained
During a lunar eclipse, the moon moves through the shadow of the earth. Which means, that the earth is positioned quite exactly between the sun and moon and casts its shadow onto the moon. This is only possible at full moon and if some other requirements are met. Depending on whether the moon passes the partial or the core shadow of the earth, we speak of a partial or total lunar eclipse.

The copper-coloured moon
When the moon touches the core shadow of the earth, the first parts of the moon surface begin to darken. If you would actually stand on the moon, you would experience a solar eclipse! As soon as the moon immerses completely in the core shadow, the total lunar eclipse begins. The surface of the moon begins to glow copper red. Towards the centre of the core shadow, the light fades and turns dark red to brownish grey.



Point of time
The exact time of the total lunar eclipse will be:

(all data in Central European Time)

Full moon on Thursday at 04:30:30 am takes place during this time. The moon is going to be fully round and copper-red at the same time (please read here, why this is the case).

Here the exact procedure again with time of day
(Central European Time):
• Entering the core shadow 02:42:57 am
• Begin of totality 04:00:32 am
• Maximum of totality 04:26:02 am
• End of totality 04:51:30 am
• Exit the core shadow 06:09:03 am



Photographs
You can find a beautiful collection of photographs from different photographers at www.fotocommunity.com. Simply enter the word "full moon" into the search engine on that website.

Links
You may find further interesting information about this subject at:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/lunar.html

www.calsky.com


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