Live Webcast Of Total Lunar Eclipse Sunday

Events for the total lunar eclipse Sept. 27-28. This version is labeled for Eastern Daylight Time. Due to the Moon’s slightly off-center path through Earth’s umbra, the southern half of its disk should look slightly brighter during totality than the northern half. Sky & Telescope illustration

 

By KELLY BEATTY
Sky & Telescope
  • A total lunar eclipse occurs in prime time for U.S. skywatchers Sunday night, Sept. 27. Sky & Telescope is providing a high-definition webcast of the entire event.

Kelly Beatty. Photo by Craig Michael Utter/S&T

Sunday evening, skygazers throughout the Americas will be treated (weather permitting) to a spectacular lunar eclipse. But if you’re stuck indoors, or if it’s cloudy in your area, or if you live outside the visibility zone, you can watch the entire event live via Sky & Telescope’s high-definition webcast here and here.

Embed codes for various or custom frame sizes are available at the webcast site on livestream.com. The webcast will be live 9 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. EDT. The eclipse also is visible from South America later in the night local time, and from Europe and much of Africa in the early-morning hours of Monday, Sept. 28.

This is a “must-see” celestial event. Over the course of 3.5 hours, the full Harvest Moon will glide through the dark core of Earth’s shadow (the umbra) and change from brilliant white to an eerie dim red (due to sunlight scattered into the shadow by Earth’s atmosphere). Totality lasts from 10:11 p.m. to 11:23 p.m. EDT; adjust to your time zone accordingly.

See more here.

Sunday’s eclipse is unusual in three ways:

  • it’s the last of four consecutive total lunar eclipses in a row (dates: April 15 and Oct. 8 in 2014; April 4 and Sept. 27-28, 2015);
  • it occurs almost exactly when the Moon comes closest to Earth for all of 2015 (221,753 miles or 356,896 km away, center to center), so the lunar disk’s area will be 13 percent larger than it was for the lunar eclipse last April.
  • it’s the last total lunar eclipse visible anywhere until Jan. 31, 2018.

Sky & Telescope’s webcast will provide uninterrupted video of the eclipse. Audio commentary will include discussions with several lunar experts scheduled at the following times:

  • 9 p.m. EDT — Alan MacRobert, a veteran S&T Senior Editor who’s scrutinized the Moon through all kinds of telescopes
  • 9:30 p.m. EDT — Sean Walker, S&T’s Equipment Editor and a veteran astrophotographer who knows the best ways to capture the eclipse
  • 10 p.m. EDT — Maria Zuber, MIT geophysicist, lead scientist for NASA’s GRAIL mission, and an expert on the lunar interior
  • 10:30 p.m. EDT — Kelly Beatty and Alan MacRobert will review eclipse geometry and the Moon’s appearance during totality
  • 11 p.m. EDT — Andrew Chaikin, space historian and author of A Man on the Moon, which details the Apollo landings in the astronauts’ own words
  • 11:30 p.m. EDT — Charles Wood, an expert in lunar geology and author of S&T’s Exploring the Moon column
  • 12 a.m. EDT — Erich Karkoschka, a University of Arizona planetary scientist whose research explains why Earth’s shadow is slightly larger than the planet itself

For general information about the eclipse, including a detailed timetable, click here.

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