How to See a Total Lunar Eclipse Next Weekend
A total lunar eclipse will be visible to sky lovers in the Americas and western parts of Europe and Africa on January 20. As a bonus, this will be a supermoon, so this eclipse is larger than usual.
According to NASA, the supermoon is what it looks like: to the human eye, it appears larger and brighter because it is at perigene, that is, the point closest to Earth in its orbit. A lunar eclipse does not darken the moon; it actually creates what is sometimes called the Blood Moon. The Earth’s shadow completely obscures the sun, but light still filters through it, creating a red tint on the moon’s surface, as TimeAndDate.com explains:
When sunlight passes through the Earth’s atmosphere, it refracts towards the Earth’s surface, and some of it – colors with shorter wavelengths – is scattered and filtered, while other colors with longer wavelengths, such as orange and red, pass through the atmosphere. This light refracts back to the surface of the completely eclipsed Moon, illuminating it with a reddish-orange glow.
The eclipse should definitely be visible without a telescope if the weather conditions are right and you are in the right region. The shadow of the Earth consists of three parts: Umbra, its darkest central shadow; partial shade – a lighter outer shadow; and Antumbra, the space between them.
A penumbral eclipse starts first, gradually increasing in shadow density, and then turns into a penumbral eclipse again as the Moon moves in its orbit. This all takes over five hours, but you can check the approximate time frame for when this happens in your area here . The total eclipse is estimated to last more than an hour – enough time to gaze up at the sky in awe.