The full Moon will swim through Earth’s shadow on Tuesday November 8, as shown in this diagram from page 100 of Astronomical Calendar 2022.
Since the Moon goes completely inside the shadow, which can be reddish because of sunlight refracted into it through Earth’s atmosphere, the result is what media have taken to calling a Blood Moon.
The total eclipse is a spectacle for the Americas and other countries around the Pacific, as shown in these pictures for the beginning and middle of the event.
There is more in the book about the geometry that causes and shapes the eclipse. But, for when to be out if you want to see it:
American clocks are, as of yesterday November 6, back on sensible – ahem, standard – time. So, translate the Universal Times in our first picture into your clock time by subtracting 5 hours if you’re in the Eastern time zone, 6 if in the Central zone, 7 in Mountain, 8 in Pacific.
Thus, the exciting moment when the sharp edge of the dark umbra or total shadow touches the Moon is 9:09 UT, which is 4:09 in New York, with the Moon over in the west a couple of hours before it sets; but 1:09 in California, with the Moon high in the sky and the whole event to come, including the hour and a half of totality.
In the first picture, notice a star, Pi Arietis, plotted (rather inconveniently close to the time labels). For the background is indeed in the constellation Aries.
Also, Uranus, on the left, and actually passing into Earth’s shadow, though Uranus, 2,800,000,000 kilometers from us, will scarcely feel the drop in sunlight. Uranus, like the full Moon, is directly outward from the Sun: it is at opposition on November 9 (8 UT). So, if you are out there to watch the eclipse, you can use the dimmed Moon as a guide to find the blue-green planet. At magnitude 5.6, it is just discernible to the naked eye if the sky is clear.
Abd el-Fattah and Abd el-Fattah
The vital Cop27 conference, on which the survival of a healthy and livable planet depends, takes place November 6 to 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Under the military dictatorship of president Abd el-Fattah el-Sisi, thousands of dissidents and journalists are in brutal prisons. One, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has been on hunger strike against his unjust imprisonment for more than 200 days, and on November 6 began refusing even water.
We provide an easy way for you to send a letter or email of protest in our Ready-Made Human Rights Letters page.
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Media locutions like “Blood Moon” amount to fakelore. There IS a “Blood Moon” but I forget which tradition it is from, but in connection to lunar eclipses, it is on the same level as TV “Meteorologists”, calling snow “the White Stuff” and rain “the Wet Stuff”.
Sharm El Sheikh doesn’t seem that good a spot for an environmental summit given that it’s a purpose built tourist resort for attracting European tourists who naturally will fly as getting there by land and sea would be very time consuming,but interesting….more interesting than a beach holiday in my view.I have never been but I did get a bus from Cairo to St Catherine once and stayed just under Mt Sinai.It was a January and freezing being about 2000m up.
I’m looking forward to the total lunar eclipse. Maximum eclipse occurs here at 10.00pm, so quite a convenient time.