Binoculars will also help keep the pair in easy view.Īndrew Fazekas, the Night Sky Guy, is the author of Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe. This will make the viewing time critical, as the duo will follow the sun quickly and sink below the horizon within 45 minutes of local sunset. What will make this a bit tricky for viewers is that this conjunction will happen less than 10 degrees above the southwestern horizon.
#What is a harvest moon full
The celestial pair will only be 2.5 degrees apart, or equal to the width of five full moon disks. Here’s an observing challenge for skywatchers in tropical latitudes: After sunset on September 17 and 18, look for the bright planet Venus to pair up with Spica, the lead star of the constellation Virgo. Shining at a feeble magnitude 7.8, the ice giant is invisible to the naked eye, but it can be glimpsed with binoculars as a very faint bluish disk among a backdrop of white pinpoint stars. While the moon is about 240,000 miles from us, on average, Neptune is the most distant planet from the sun at about 2.7 billion miles away. But don’t be fooled by their celestial coziness. The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, which is one of two times in a year that sees the Earth's axis tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, This creates nearly. The two worlds will appear to be only three degrees apart, a separation that’s equal to six full moon disks side by side. After darkness falls on September 15, look for the moon to guide binocular viewers to the planet Neptune.
The next big lunar event for the Eastern Hemisphere will be January 31, 2018, when there will be a total eclipse of the moon. It would be a time of crop collection but also of large parties signing, dancing and drinking. The Celts would use the Harvest Moon to mark the time before Samhain and considered it a blessing. While not as flashy as a super blood moon eclipse, you should be sure to enjoy this week’s lunar show-it’s the last harvest moon eclipse of any kind that we’ll see until 2024. The Chinese call the moon the Chrysanthemum Moon because of the illusion of the colour change. Expect to see the darkening effect start over the northern portion of the moon’s limb and envelope about 91 percent of its disk during its maximum phase. For detailed charts and times in your location, visit .īecause the darkening will be so slight, the best bet for viewers will be to use binoculars or telescopes to catch the creep of Earth’s shadow as it blankets the moon’s usual glare. The deepest and darkest phase of the eclipse will come at 2:54 p.m. The best views of this week’s harvest eclipse should be across Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the western Pacific Basin. When this penumbral eclipse happens, it creates a subtle shading of the lunar disk. Find out what happened.Ī total eclipse of the moon is highly dramatic affair, since the moon turns dark red as it glides through the deep inner shadow cone, or umbra, of Earth.īecause the sun is a large disk rather than a single point of light, our planet’s shadow also has a lighter outer cone, or prenumbra, that can also envelop the moon. The unique lunar phenomenon happens when a set of three events converge at the right time. On September 27, 2015, a rare super blood moon was visible in the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
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