La Luna sangrante

The second of a series of four eclipses (over 2014/15) will be visible in our skies tomorrow night. From about 9:20pm (New Zealand time) on Wednesday 8 October, the Earth will be between the Moon and the Sun and it’s shadow will be fall across the lunar surface.

The sunlight refracts as it passes through Earth’s atmosphere and the red part of the colour spectrum is cast against the Moon’s surface giving the moon a bloody complextion.

In days of old, this type of eclipse scared the bejezus out of the populus. End-of-days and wrath-of-god and cats-and-dogs-living-together caused panic and pandamonium until, mysteriously and after countless virgin sacrifices, the moon moved out of Earth’s shadow and all was right with the world again. Phew, just as well we had stocked up on virgins!

Checking New Zealand’s NIWA Weather widget for tomorrow night it looks like rain will be falling from about 8:30pm until about 3am so we’re not feeling hopeful of seeing the eclipse. In case the weather widget is correct and the wind doesn’t blow those pesky low clouds away, we’re going to have to watch it online, beamed automagically from another part of the planet.

Associated links:

• Eclipse calendar (Time and Date) <= simulation of the eclipse and NZ times for the real deal
• NIWA Weather (NIWA)
• Lunar eclipse (Wikipedia)
• Lunar Eclipse Myths From Around the World (Natonal Geographic)
• Total Lunar Eclipse Live Stream (live.slooh.com)
• Can a full moon make us crazy? (ABC Science)