Mooning Around During an Eclipse

A spectacular show brightened Lancaster’s sky Saturday night as the long shadow of the earth swept across the face of the moon. The lunar eclipse, which started at about 5:15 p.m. when the moon entered the outer shadow of the earth, progressed under clear skies. By 6:32 p.m., the moon was entering the earth’s dark inner shadow. Shown here, on the left, is the moon entering that dark inner shadow at 6:35 p.m. local time. The next shot, taken at 6:56 p.m. shows the shadow beginning to noticably cover the moon and by 7:17 p.m. about a third of the moon’s surface is covered. The next shot was taken at 7:35 p.m. and the full effect of the total lunar eclipse is seen here in a photo taken at 8:24 p.m. The color of the moon now, a coppery-red, comes from the Earth’s natural satellite, which doesn’t disappear during the event. The Earth’s atmosphere acts as a prism and refracts, or bends, the sun’s rays into the shadow so that some light still reaches the moon, astronomers say. The most spectacular part, when the moon turns the coppery-red color, was almost interrupted here by a brief cloud cover, but was saved by winds that blew the clouds out of the way of spectators’ view.