Look for an early Blood Moon on Sunday
When the full moon rises at 6:34 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27 (the sun will set five minutes later), it will already be more than 40 percent partially eclipsed. This will occur early enough that even young children likely will still be awake to witness this Blood Moon.
What is a Blood Moon?
What is a tetrad?
A Blood Moon is the name that’s been assigned to a reddish totally eclipsed full moon. It is a name that was not designated by astronomers or scientists.
Why is a Blood Moon reddish? Because when the Earth gets directly in the way between the sun and the moon, which produces a total (lunar) eclipse of the moon, the sun’s rays of light, in passing through the Earth’s atmosphere, casts a reddish color on the totally eclipsed moon for much the same reason as the sky gets reddish at sunset — atmospheric refraction in action.
A tetrad is a series of four Blood Moons about six months apart from each other, wherein no partial or penumbral lunar eclipse occurs during the intervening period between Blood Moons. So, the total timespan of a tetrad (between the occurrence of the first Blood Moon and the last or fourth Blood Moon in the series) is about a year and a half.
There were no tetrads for almost 328 years, from July 16, 1581, through June 4, 1909. There are eight tetrads expected to occur for we earthlings during the 21st century. The tetrad that is ending is the second of the eight expected in the 21st century.
The three previous Blood Moons in the current tetrad occurred in the wee hours of the morning when children are usually sleeping. The chronology of this celestial event:
•Partial eclipse of the full moon begins 6:07 p.m.
•Moon rises at Ramona, 6:34 p.m.
•Blood Moon enters totality, 7:11 p.m.
•Blood Moon exits totality, 8:23 p.m.
•Partial eclipse of the full moon ends, 9:27 p.m.
Besides being a Blood Moon, this full moon is also called a Super Moon because, in its elliptical orbit around the Earth, it will be at or near its orbit’s perigee, meaning that it will be at its closest to the Earth when it rises that evening, so it will appear larger than usual to the observer. The next time that a Super Moon will be totally eclipsed isn’t expected to happen for almost 18 years, not until Oct. 8, 2033.
September’s full moon is also called a Harvest Moon because more than 100 years ago the reflected light from it allowed farmers to harvest their crops so late in the day. Harvest Moon is the designation for the full moon that occurs closest to when the Autumnal Equinox takes place in the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere, when the “imaginary” or “mean” sun crosses the Earth’s celestial equator from the north to the south and the daylight and night are considered to be of equal duration.
That event, the Autumnal Equinox, was to occur for Ramonans at 12:20 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 23. Less than four days later, we should see the Blood Moon. The Autumnal Equinox ends the Northern Hemisphere’s summer season and begins its fall or autumn season.
The next total lunar eclipse visible from Ramona should take place on Wednesday night, Jan. 31, 2018. An even longer period of a total lunar eclipse should occur on Monday night, Jan. 21, 2019.
The reader is advised to “track” the moon’s path in the sky before it becomes totally eclipsed. If you do this, you should have an easier time spotting where the totally eclipsed moon is in the sky even though it has a reddish cast to it.
Enjoy!