Four reasons to watch the sky on Friday

An unusual sort of eclipse will shadow the Snow Moon as it rises Friday night.

For viewers in the United Kingdom, the shadow will first cast over the moon at 22:34 GMT, and will end at 02:53 GMT. The ideal spot to watch the eclipse is from Europe and Africa.

“You might think the full moon looks slightly darker than a typical full moon, if you catch it as it’s passing through the Earth’s faint penumbral shadow”, McClure said.

A penumbral eclipse isn’t as noticeable as a total lunar eclipse. A short-period comet typically has an orbital period of fewer than 200 years, which makes their appearances more frequent.

According to the Farmers’ Almanac, full moon names date back to Native Americans in the northern and eastern U.S. Each full moon has its own name. The maximum eclipse will come shortly before 7:45 p.m. Friday night.

Lunar eclipses occur when Earth lines up directly between the Sun and the Moon, blocking the light from the Sun to the Moon.

In early March, Comet 2P Encke will be visible through binoculars in the western skies just after sunset, according to NASA. If you are wondering why it is named 45P, it’s because the P stands for periodic, meaning we see this comet on a regular basis as it orbits the sun. In fact, it comes closest to Earth this weekend.

New Year comet: Named because it began moving across the sky at the tail end of 2016, the New Year comet is set to shoot across the sky on February 11.

While it won’t be coming in for a landing, 45P/H-M-P will miss the planet by just 7.7 million miles or about 32 times the Earth-Moon distance.

Don’t worry if staying up until 3 a.m.is a bit too far past your bedtime, you’ll get another chance to see Comet 45P fly by Earth in 2022. The eclipse will end at 2.53am on Saturday. And a streaking comet might be visible early Saturday.

Slooh will also host another event on the same night, with a focus on the other big astronomy event happening then – the flyby of Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková.

According to NASA, the comet will be visible near the constellation of Hercules and will have a bright green tail.