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Credit & Copyright: Tomas Slovinsky
Explanation:
Cloudy skies plagued some sky watchers on Sunday as May's
Full Flower Moon
slipped through Earth's shadow in a
total
lunar eclipse.
In skies above Chile's Atacama desert this telephoto snapshot still
captured an awesome spectacle though.
Seen through thin high cirrus clouds just before totality began,
a last sliver of sunlit crescent glistens like a hazy
jewel atop the mostly shadowed lunar disk.
This full moon was near perigee,
the closest point in
its elliptical
orbit.
It passed near the center of Earth's
dark umbral shadow during
the 90 minute long total eclipse phase.
Faintly suffused with sunlight scattered by the atmosphere, the umbral
shadow itself gave the eclipsed moon a reddened appearance and the
very dramatic popular moniker of a
Blood Moon.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: total lunar eclipse
Publications with words: total lunar eclipse
See also: