SUPER FLOWER BLOOD MOON LUNAR ECLIPSE

More than a decade ago I posted on the coming of a lunar eclipse to be viewable from Hawaii.   Then on 21 January 2019 I reported on my adventure trying to photograph this event from Waikiki.  For the first time in my life I actually succeeded with what was called the Super Blood Wolf Lunar Eclipse:

Tonight in Hawaii, meaning early Thursday morning in much of the western portion of the USA, Canada and Mexico, there will be a lunar trifecta.  Also in prime location are Australia, New Zealand and islands of the Pacific.  The big difference compared to a solar eclipse is that you don't need special viewing glasses for this Super Flower Blood Moon lunar eclipse.

Skywatchers are in for a treat this week when a full moon, a supermoon and a total lunar eclipse occur on the same day — a rare lunar trifecta, according to NASA.

The celestial spectacle will take place before dawn Wednesday, when the biggest and brightest full moon of the year turns rusty red as it slips completely into Earth's shadow.

Weather permitting, the total lunar eclipse will be visible across the Western United States, western Canada, Mexico, much of Central America, parts of South America and Asia along the Pacific Rim.

"Folks in Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands will get to see the entirety of this eclipse — it will be quite a show for them," Bill Cooke, who leads NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement.

This is the first total lunar eclipse to occur with a supermoon (when the moon is closest to Earth) in six years, and the next one will occur in the U.S. on 16 May 2022 (left).

From Hawaii (just add three hours if you're on Pacific Daylight Time):

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  The eclipse will begin at 10:46PM.
• Totality, when Earth's shadow covers the moon, will be from 1:11AM to 1:26AM.
• Thus, totality will last for around 15 minutes.

Note that if you live in Australia, this event will begin tonight at 5:45 PM in Western Australia.  For Sydney, it will be at 7:45 PM.  Totality for this city will be from 9:11 PM to 9:26PM.  If I lived in Australia, I'd almost certainly photograph this eclipse.  However, I'm not too excited about doing this after midnight in Honolulu.  To the left is what the lunar eclipse looked like over Perth in 2018. 

The longest total lunar eclipse in the past century lasted one hour and 43 minutes the night of July 27-28 in 2018.  If you got 5 hours to spare, here is that entire lunar eclipse.  As the graphic to the right shows, Hawaii totally missed this lunar eclipse. The shortest occurred on 4 April 2015 at 4 minutes 48 seconds.  Solar eclipses, however, seldom persist beyond 3 minutes, and can last no more than 7 minutes 31 seconds.

Here is something you probably did not know.  There are usually two lunar eclipses/year, but sometimes none, and in some  years, three.  Solar eclipses occur two to five times/year, although five is rare, the last one in 1935, and next will occur in 2206.  But actually seeing any one of them depends on where you live.

In history, the first mention of a lunar eclipse was on 29 January 1137 BC, in the Chinese book Zhou-Shu.  Then, of course, you probably remember Christopher Columbus using this bit of scientific information to gain influence over the indigenous people of Jamaica.  My memory was that this was a solar eclipse, but, turns out, it was a lunar eclipse:

Columbus had on board an almanac authored by Regiomontanus of astronomical tables covering the years 1475–1506; upon consulting the book, he noticed the date and the time of an upcoming lunar eclipse. He was able to use this information to his advantage. He requested a meeting for that day with the Cacique, and told him that his god was angry with the local people's treatment of Columbus and his men. Columbus said his god would provide a clear sign of his displeasure by making the rising full moon appear "inflamed with wrath".

The lunar eclipse and the red moon appeared on schedule, and the indigenous people were impressed and frightened. The son of Columbus, Ferdinand, wrote that the people:

with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions, praying to the Admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf...

Columbus timed the eclipse with his hourglass, and shortly before the totality ended after 48 minutes, he told the frightened indigenous people that they were going to be forgiven.^[8] When the Moon started to reappear from the shadow of the Earth, he told them that his god had pardoned them.^[9]

The first eclipse film is French, by Georges Melies in 1907, The Eclipse, the Courtship of the Sun and Moon.  This is the whole film, around 9 minutes long.

To quote the Guardian:

Hawaii will have the best view of May’s full supermoon, followed by California, the Pacific north-west, New Zealand and Australia.

It was earlier this month that Cyclone Tauktae struck India's west coast and killed more than 150 people.  Well, during the next 24 hours Cyclone Yaas will at 110 MPH make landfall over India's East coast, between Dhamra and Balasore.

Three days ago, the first cyclonic storm Ana formed in the Atlantic.  NOAA is considering moving the start of the hurricane season from June 1 to May 15 in the Atlantic.  However Tropical Storm Andres appeared in the East Pacific on May 6, so perhaps the Pacific will need to advance that date to May 1.

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