Does it bother you that the 4th of July fireworks in your area are canceled? Don’t do it: There will be an even greater heavenly gift for sky watchers this weekend; A full moon and a partial twilight eclipse will be visible this Saturday and Sunday (July 4-5).
The timing is not a coincidence: lunar eclipses can only occur during the full moon. However, unlike the Great American eclipse of 2017, this eclipse will not be total. Instead, only a faint shadow from Earth will fall on the moon.
The moon show begins on the afternoon of Independence Day and ends in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 5. Unlike the lunar eclipse that accompanied The June “strawberry” full moonThis eclipse will be visible in most of the US, including the lower 48 and Hawaii, but not Alaska.
Related: Glitzy pictures of a supermoon
A partial penumbral eclipse occurs when land It is between the sun and the full moon. Eclipses begin when Earth’s shadow falls on the moon, but in this case, the moon will not pass through Earth’s dark inner shadow, known as the umbra. Instead, on July 4 the moon will pass through the lightest and outermost shadow on Earth, known as twilight. (The video below shows a useful visualization.)
Also, this eclipse will be “partial”, because only a part of the moon will be submerged in the half-light. Indeed, this weekend’s partial twilight eclipse will appear as if a mouse takes a small faint bite from the northern edge of the full moon. This “bite” can be difficult to see with the naked eye, so moon watchers may need telescopes or binoculars to see the full effect, according to nasa.
The eclipse begins at 11:07 pm EDT on July 4 (3:07 am UTC on July 5), according to timeanddate.com. The eclipse will be at its peak, the point where the highest percentage of the moon will be covered in twilight, at 12:29 am EDT (4:29 am UTC) on July 5. Then, 2 hours and 45 minutes after it started, the eclipse will end at 1:52 am EDT (5:52 am UTC).
If you miss this lunar eclipse, be sure to catch the next one, which occurs Nov. 29-30, 2020, according to Space.com, a sister site to Live Science.
Meanwhile, photographers would miss the full moon that shines this weekend. The July full moon is widely known as the buck moon, so named because mid-summer is when male deer, called bucks, cultivate their new antlers. However, it is also known as the thunder moon, a nod to frequent summer thunderstorms, according to NASA.
The moon will peak at 12:44 a.m. EDT on Sunday morning. But the moon will appear full for three days, from Friday night (July 3) to Monday morning (July 6).
Other celestial sightings on the night of July 4 will include the bright planet Jupiter and a dimmer Saturn, which will appear in the east southeast, NASA noted. The “summer triangle”, formed by the three bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair, will appear to the east.
Originally published in Live Science.
