What if you place your open hand in between your face and the bulb? Yeah, you won’t be able to see the bulb! What if you place a finger between your face and the lamp? You can see the lamp (if lamp is not placed too far away).
Total Lunar Eclipse
Total lunar eclipse is same situation when you placed your hand between lamp and your eyes. Moon cannot see the Sun in the case when Earth fits exactly between the Moon and the Sun. And hence, it cannot be lit by the sun as it does usually. Yeah, it’s red, but will come to that later.
Partial Lunar Eclipse
Partial Lunar eclipse is like you placed your finger between your eyes and the lamp. In that case, Earth is between the Moon and Sun though, but not exactly all 3 of them are in a line.
Majestic Lunar Eclipse of 27-28 July, 2018
Coolest thing about total lunar eclipse July 2018 was It’s stretched out length. Everyone knows that though. 😛
Many people (including me) have seen Red Moon live, for the first time. So, I’d like to tell why is it red after all?
Why RED??
Ever thought why sky is blue while sun seems yellow? Why sunset and sunrise are reddish? Well, reason for all these phenomenon is same as for lunar eclipse totality’s being RED.
When white sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, gas molecules absorb high energy photons (blue and violet) and emit those photons later in all directions. So, the sky lits up to blue and the light we can directly see from sun is yellowish.
Same phenomenon occurs during eclipse. This time Moon sees Yellowish red light of Sun, because Earth atmosphere has scattered bluish components of sunlight. For further details, you can google: “Rayleigh scattering”
It can be seen that Moon was all RED during it’s totality of eclipse and the red effect started from our left side in these images and went to right side in the image.
Mars Opposition!
How can I forget Mars opposition!! If you could see the sky last night, you must have had seen a bright yellow spot under the Eclipsed moon. It was Planet Mars. Yeah, the red planet! So, you can see it daily at night and start observing it’s motion.
More Fun Stuff
If you are interested in Astronomy, and want to know how astronomers know which star is which, try installing the free software, Stellarium.
If you use android smart phone, try Sky Safari 5.
Do leave your comments.
Cheers,
Arshad
Arshad Aleem 
Informative content. I’m a beginner. So I would like to know the science behind eclipse. Sun, moon and earth all have almost circular orbit. Moon should come behind the earth at least once in a day and eclipse should occur. So why does it occur rarely?
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Moon’s orbit lasts 28 days. So, there must be lunar eclipse every month. Because only once in a month we will have Sun, Earth and Moon in a line. I guess this is what u r wanna ask?
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Yeah this is actually I was asking for. So my question is still on it’s point. Why we don’t have lunar eclipse every month.
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Simply, because Moon, Sun and Earth are not in a line exactly every month.
Moon’s axis of rotation about Earth is tilted w.r.t. that of Earth’s axis about the Sun. So, there’s very less probability that we will have all 3 of them in same line every month.
Let me know if it isn’t yet clear 😉
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Yeah it’s clear now. Thanks for time.
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All my pleasure dude.
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Dat thing come ba mah house, I kill it!
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Hahahahaha 😀
It’s not that scary though 😛
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Its great and fantastic information about LUNAR ECLIPS. I have not seen a red moon as i remember or once probably had. Missed the scene of july 28.
Keep updating.. Thanks
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Sure Asim. I myself didn’t sleep for the whole night of 27-28 July, but Red Moon was only visible for 5 – 10 minutes through naked eye.
Genuine Pleasure 🙂
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Very much appreciating
Well written
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Thank you Mr. Ahsan 🙂
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