Friday’s triple treat in the sky: lunar eclipse, full moon and comet

If you only look to the sky once in a blue moon, tomorrow night is the night to do so. The penumbra is the dusky part of the Earth’s shadow, before you get to the shadow itself.

A penumbral eclipse is when the earth casts a cone-shaped, partial shadow on the moon but doesn’t cover it completely, Ni explains.

After mid-eclipse, the graying begins to fade to the moon’s normal brightness.

What time does the lunar eclipse start?

Folks in the northeastern USA will probably agree with the Farmer’s Almanac listing of the February full moon as the “snow moon“.

While the next total lunar eclipse won’t happen until 2019, skygazers can expept big meteor showers toward the second half of the year.

From 10:30pm on February 10, Brits may be able to notice subtle shading over the Moon. But never fear, if you miss out this time or just want more space sights, there will be another comet known as C/2015 ER61 visible in April through mid-May, according to Sky & Telescope.

Wheeler said she is going to an overpass by her house with her camera and a telescope on Saturday morning to see the comet. While solar eclipses are striking events, they are highly localized; lunar eclipses, on the other hand, are visible to wide swaths of the planet. That’s because February 10 will also bring a penumbral lunar eclipse. If there are any clouds, even high ones, it will make the subtleness of this event more hard to view. No, it won’t be as spectacular as those “blood moon” eclipses.

“If you are able to get away, go to a county park, or some place near the coast where you are able to look out over a large area of sky that is not affected by streets lights or building lights”.

Soon after moonrise, the eclipse will be most easily seen in the northeast.

USA Today has reported that eclipse will be visible in eastern North and South America, Europe, Africa and western Asia.

If the sky is clear, those in the United Kingdom can watch from their window – although squinting may be required as it is not a total eclipse.

“It was sporting quite a long tail before reaching perihelion (closest to the Sun) on New Year’s Eve”.

Along with the lunar eclipse, Comet 45P will make its closest approach to Earth.

“It’s a lovely thing to see if you have a telescope”, Boyle said.