Star and Saturn near moon in eclipse on Feb 20
21 comments Print Me Email to FriendTonight's Sky for Wednesday, Feb 20 2008
Our chart shows tonight’s eclipsed moon, with two bright objects nearby. One is a planet, Saturn, now nearly at its closest and brightest for all of 2008. The other is the star Regulus in the constellation Leo the Lion.
For details on when and where to observe this eclipse, check out today’s radio show.
Seeing an eclipse is easy, if you happen to be standing on the part of Earth that can see the moon when the eclipse takes place. But predicting exactly what the eclipse will look like is hard.
Strangely, the moon’s appearance during an eclipse depends partially on Earth’s weather as a whole. Usually the fully eclipsed moon appears in some gradation from dark gray to a bright red or orange. Any light that falls on the moon during a total eclipse does not come directly from the sun. Instead it passes around the Earth, like light coming over the horizon just after sunset. In fact, the light that illuminates the moon during eclipse is the same as the sunset glow, but from the full 360 degrees of the round Earth! So if weather conditions on Earth are – on the whole – suitable for bright red sunsets, the eclipse will be colored like that. If instead Earth’s sunsets are mostly dark, the eclipse will be dark.
Astronomers rank lunar eclipses by the Danjon Scale, which runs like this:
0 – Very dark
1 – Dark, gray or brownish
2 – Deep red or rust-colored
3 – Brick-red
4 – Very bright copper-red or orange
How would you rank tonight’s eclipse?
OMG!!the skys really cool tonight.this will really help me with homework
I can see three rays of light from each side of the moon!!! How beautiful it is!!
Great view of lunar eclipse from Beaverton, Oregon. Clear skies for a change. At 7:23, it looks like an orange floating in the dark sky. Beautiful!
We can’t see anything from my house, to many clouds
Great view of the eclipse tonight. The moon glowed a pale burgundy and then a golden copper. Saturn and Regulus were also very bright. Awesome sight!
The lunar eclipse was amazing!
I wen toutside and watched with my telescope, truly a beautiful experience!
=]
The moon looked fairly ‘primitive;’ Saturn was fabulous! But Regulus was incredible!! Checking them out well beyond the city lights, with my 60 (power) by 82mm “Birding Scope,” Regulus had a triad of the primary colors; well, more like a TV ‘projection gun’ of red, green and blue. What caused this, my len’s coatings – or was that typical for this star?
Nice site, first post, I’ll be back – after I study up on Regulus!
WOw the eclispe is so cool and I can see all the stars…. for a couple of months I havent really seen all the stars but tonight is awesome too bad I cant take a pic of it I really wanna remember this night AWESOME I wonder if the moon and sun will ever meet??? but then again maybe not….
I would rank this somewhere between a 1 and a 2 for color.
I have never senn an eclipse of the moon.
I called my sister and had her take the kids out to see it.
Very cool!!
I 4GOT 2 MENTION PEOPLE . WE SAW IT BEAUTIFULLY FROM
SALINAS, CAL . IT RAINNED ALL DAY .BUT , 2NITE WAS THE BEST !
WOW, What an amazing sky tonight! Father God is something else isn’t He!?
Waaoooo!!!...Regulus and Saturn Rock!!..AAhhh.The Moon ???..Wonderful…From Tampa Florida
Ovechkin is so totally better than crosby!!!
Great to hear that so many of you had a good view! Here in Denver we had a number of observing parties planned, but were completely clouded out — didn’t see a thing! Dadgummit!
Larry S.
Got my husband and daughter out to see it up jsut 30 miles north of Chicago! An exceptionately clear night, but fridgid, Brrr! The Moon was amazing, It hung there a rusty red orange and looked so close, my daughter,10, said it looked like you could tie a string on it, like a balloon.
What a view from Mason Ohio! I do wish we owned a telescope though:( We really wanted to see the rings of Saturn. Our kids thought it was well worth staying up for and I have to agree. Can’s wait for 2010!
Kat, you may have to wait until 2010 for the next eclipse, but there are lots of things going on between now and then. “Stay tuned to this channel for details”!
LS
I was out in the bitter cold in Cedar Falls, Iowa and I just used my handy digital Olympus camera. I saw a purple dot in the viewfinder and couldn’t believe it was Saturn. I also saw Regulus which was awesome!!
that was a awesome sight the moon between saturn and regulus was beautiful it look so close to earth you might of thought it was the planet venus or mars very close to earth cant wait till the next one in 2010
i took some fantastic photos of the eclipse and wondered if that was saturn and a star around the moon? i have some fantastic photographs, some jealous people have told me the stars are just spots on my camera, well 10 of the 20 photos have these stars or saturn. did anybody else get good photos??
Yep, it well could have been Saturn and the star Regulus. Depending on where you are located and the time of the photos, Regulus was basically a little above and to the right of the Moon, whereas Saturn, which is brighter, was to the left of the Moon. This assumes you were looking east-sotuheast at the time.
LS