Lunar Eclipse on New Year’s Eve January 1, 2010

Subhanallah

Today is new year and there’s an amazing phenomena also happening in the world. The partial lunar eclipse can be viewed in Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. This phenomenon which only occurs once in a blue moon, really happens in a blue moon today. It was a great new year present for me.

Below is part of an article from http://www.deccanherald.com/content/44105/after-1741-2010-witness-lunar.html

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On a full blue moon day on Thursday, skywatchers will have a bonanza when they find the lunar radiance, rather dim, as the country witnesses a partial lunar eclipse. The phenomenon, according to astrophysicists, is only the second time since 1741 when the world saw a lunar eclipse on a New Year’s day.

A partial lunar eclipse occurs when only part of the Moon passes through the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow.“Although the partial phase of the eclipse lasts for an hour, only 7 per cent of the diameter of the Moon is covered by the umbral shadow of the Earth, which is too negligible to be easily visible,” said N Rathnashree, director of Nehru Planetarium.

When a second full moon in a calendar month appears in the night sky, the occurrence is known as a blue moon. There are 12 full moons most years, but every two or three years there is an extra full moon which is called a blue moon.

“Such an eclipse of the Moon will be difficult to discern with naked eye—although an astrophotograph of the Moon might just show a hint of darkening over a very tiny region of the Moon,” Rathnasree said.

According to scientists, the astronomical event can be seen all over Asia and Europe, major parts of Africa and a small portion of southwestern Australia.

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Now for my experience;

I didn’t sleep last night. I did not plan to wait, but as the night went by, I thought just why not?

It was very cloudy, I went out the corridor to take a look as early as 2.30am I guess. Then, I started to go out again and again trying to get a clear view of the eclipse although they say the climax would be at 3.24am when the moon is maximum in the umbra (darkest part of earth shadow). The photo was taken pretty late as I just remembered to do so late. It was after solat sunat khusyuf (which I just learned from the internet minutes before) and I decided to go out once more, it was better, with less cloud. I remembered Pia’s camera and took it from my room. It was still cloudy though. I snapped too many but here is one;

Partial eclipse? on 01/01/10 at 3.49am K17 UPM (Selangor, Malaysia)

This was taken with my housemate Pia’s Sony Cybershot 6.0 megapixel using ISO mode. I’m not really sure whether it’s the eclipse in the photo because it was very cloudy and this was the best I could get. But as u can see, on the left hand side, there’s a little part of the moon is blocked. They say it will be difficult to see with naked eye, and it also might only be cloud, but I believe what I saw. And I’m pretty sure it was.

This one below taken in Thailand just uploaded to wikipedia only moments after the eclipse.

Is it different from mine? It doesn’t seem different much to me. Hehehe~ I don’t care. lolz.

Anyway, it was a beautiful phenomenon. Let’s take this as a step for us to tafakur ‘alam and appreciate Allah’s Great creation; the WORLD. Subhanallah~